IBL EL-SAQI, Lebanon - Israel grabbed strategic high ground in south Lebanon 
on Thursday but delayed a major push northward, as diplomats cited progress 
toward agreement on a U.N. cease-fire resolution that could soon go to a vote. 
 
 
   An Israeli soldier 
 watches a tank as it leaves the Lebanon side of the Israel-Lebanon border, 
 August 10, 2006.[Reuters] | 
With Israeli troops closer to Beirut than at any time since the war began, 
diplomats said they were close to unlocking the stalemate over a U.N. effort 
toward a cease-fire. The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, said a vote 
was possible on Friday. 
The United States and France have been trying to bridge differences over a 
timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. 
Israeli ground troops took control of the mainly Christian town of Marjayoun 
before dawn and blasted away throughout the day at strongly fortified Hezbollah 
positions in several directions. 
An Israeli soldier was killed and two were wounded in fierce battles with 
Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday, a day after the Israeli military suffered its 
worst one-day military loss, with 15 soldiers killed. More than 800 people have 
died in the month-long conflict, including 715 in Lebanon. 
A huge explosion rocked the center of the town and the surrounding 
countryside about sunset and a big fire could be seen raging from a vantage 
point in Ibl el-Saqi, about two miles to the east. 
By taking Marjayoun the Israeli army was closer to Beirut than at any time 
since the fighting began July 12 after a cross-border raid in which Hezbollah 
captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three. 
At the same time, the army was still within about five miles of the Israeli 
border. Marjayoun, which sits near major road junctions in the south, lies due 
north of Israel's Galilee panhandle that juts north into Lebanon. 
Marjayoun was used as the command center for the Israeli army and its allied 
Lebanese militia during an 18-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 
2000. The high ground around Marjayoun, including the village of Blatt, 
overlooks the Litani River valley, one of the staging sites for Hezbollah's 
relentless rocket assaults on Israel. 
Diplomatic efforts had stalled as the Lebanese called for Israeli troops to 
start pulling out once hostilities end and Beirut sends 15,000 troops of its own 
to the south, while Israel has insisted on staying in southern Lebanon until a 
robust international force is deployed, which could take weeks or months. 
"We've closed some of the areas of disagreement with the French," U.S. 
Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said. 
Suggestions that a new resolution was in the works also emerged. 
"A new proposal is being drafted, which has positive significance that may 
bring the war to an end," Israeli member of parliament Otniel Schneller quoted 
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying. "But if the draft is not accepted 
there is the Cabinet decision." 
The Israeli Security Cabinet authorized Olmert to expand the current 
offensive in Lebanon, but Israeli officials said they would hold off to give 
diplomacy more time to work. 
"If we can achieve that by diplomatic means and are sure that there is an 
intention to implement that document, we shall definitely be in a position where 
the military operation has achieved diplomatic space and a new situation has 
been created here in the north," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said. 
But he warned Israel was ready to use "all of the tools" to cripple Hezbollah 
if efforts toward a cease-fire failed. 
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora met twice Thursday with U.S. Ambassador 
Jeffrey Feltman. An aide to the Lebanese leader, who spoke on condition of 
anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said new ideas 
for ending the fighting involved combining two envisioned resolutions into one 
overarching document. 
Broadly speaking, the U.S.-French draft Security Council resolution called 
for a cessation of hostilities and the deployment of the Lebanese army into 
southern Lebanon to the Israeli border, in cooperation with U.N. peacekeepers 
who are already there. As the Lebanese start deploying, the Israeli army will 
begin withdrawing, according to council diplomats. 
Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat told The Associated Press about 350 
Lebanese soldiers and police garrisoned in Marjayoun were taken into custody. 
Residents said the Israelis also took over one building in the barracks, locked 
up the ammunition and weapons depot and took away the keys. 
An Israel military spokeswoman said troops arrived at a building in the town, 
where there were soldiers, police and refugees, but only advised them to remain 
there for their own safety. 
"Nobody has been taken prisoner," she said, declining to be identified 
because military rules did not allow her to make public comments. 
Israel reported one of its soldiers was killed and two were wounded in Qleia, 
just south of Marjayoun, when Hezbollah guerrillas fired a missile at a tank. 
Hezbollah reported killing as many as 16 Israeli soldiers and destroying 18 
tanks. 
Two Israeli civilians also died in Hezbollah rocket attacks, an Arab-Israeli 
mother and her young daughter in the village of Deir al-Assad. Israel reported 
160 Hezbollah rockets landed during the day. 
On the Lebanese side the death toll was significantly lower than in recent 
days, with only four people killed, all of them civilians hit in Israeli air and 
artillery strikes. 
More than 800 people in Lebanon and Israel have died since fighting erupted — 
715 on the Lebanese side and 121 on the Israeli side. 
In Beirut, Israeli warplanes blanketed the downtown area with leaflets that 
threatened a "painful and strong" response to Hezbollah attacks and warned 
residents to evacuate three southern suburbs. Other warnings dropped from planes 
said any trucks on a key northern highway to Syria would be considered targets 
for attack. 
Earlier, missiles from Israeli helicopter gunships blasted the top of a 
historic lighthouse in central Beirut in an apparent attempt to knock out a 
broadcast antenna for Lebanese state television. 
Top U.N. humanitarian official Jan Egeland criticized Israel and Hezbollah 
for hindering the delivery of aid to civilians trapped in southern Lebanon, 
saying it was a "disgrace" they had failed to allow convoys to get through. 
Egeland said a plan worked out with Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah to funnel 
aid through humanitarian corridors has not worked the way each side had 
promised. 
"The Hezbollah and the Israelis could give us access in a heartbeat," Egeland 
said at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva. "Then we could help 120,000 
people in southern Lebanon.