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JERUSALEM (AP)--The Israeli military will hold off on a wider ground offensive in south Lebanon for two or three days to allow the U.N. Security Council to continue its debate for a cease-fire resolution, one of the ministers at Wednesday's Security Cabinet meeting said.
The offensive, approved at the meeting, was expected to take 30 days as part of a new push to badly damage Hezbollah, said another Israeli Cabinet minister, Eli Yishai.
The decision to expand the offensive was made with nine ministers in favor and three abstaining. The Security Cabinet authorized troops to push to the Litani River some 30 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Currently, some 10,000 soldiers are fighting Hezbollah in a six-kilometer-deep stretch from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The decision gave authorization to Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order the wider offensive and to decide its timing. However, it didn't oblige them to act.
When Olmert returned to the meeting, he announced that a new diplomatic process would begin simultaneous to the military operation and that a new U.N. Security Council resolution to end the fighting would be drafted to try to address Lebanon's concerns, the minister said.
hope it holds . . . hope it means innocent Lebanese civilians can resume digging out their neighbors, family members, and friends from the rubble. I hope it means that Israel will open up roads to let aid go through. I hope it means the end to the airstrikes targeting populated areas of Lebanon.
I hope Hizbollah takes a similar step back.
I'll believe it when I see it. I actually don't expect Israel to completely yield, but I didn't welcome any 'new' offensive either.
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