A DELEGATION from the Arab League gave warning that the UN could provoke a civil war in Lebanon if it called for a cessation of hostilities without an immediate Israeli withdrawal.

Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari Foreign Minister, delivered the dire prediction at an open meeting of the Security Council after flying to New York with the Arab League team from Beirut. “If we adopt resolutions without fully considering the reality of Lebanon, we will face a civil war,” he said. “Instead of helping Lebanon we will destroy Lebanon.”

As the war raged on — with at least 14 Lebanese and four Israeli soldiers killed yesterday — the Arab League team appealed to the UN to support proposals by the Lebanese Government for an immediate Israeli withdrawal. Hezbollah has vowed to continue fighting as long as Israeli troops are on Lebanese territory. Other Lebanese factions and Arab nations have rallied to back Hezbollah’s demands.

Tarek Mitri, the Lebanese Culture Minister and special envoy to the UN, told the Security Council: “For a cessation of hostilities to be viable, Israel has to start withdrawing immediately from Lebanese territory. This should not be postponed.”

The Security Council, however, is unlikely to heed the Arab League’s appeal because Israel has said that it will hand over its positions only to a tough multinational force. “Israel is ready to cease hostilities and to withdraw its forces if these effective measures will come in its place so that the terrorist threat to its citizens will finally be brought to an end,” Daniel Gillerman, the Israeli Ambassador, told council members.

Lebanon has offered to deploy 15,000 troops to monitor a buffer zone in the south if the Israelis agreed to withdraw — a statement that Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, described as “interesting”. But diplomats said that although clearer language on an Israeli withdrawal would be inserted into the draft resolution, the timetable for an Israeli pullback was likely to remain unchanged.

A vote is not now expected until tomorrow at the earliest. Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, is on standby to fly to New York.

As diplomatic wrangling continued, Israel began to evacuate hundreds of war-weary citizens from towns near the Lebanese border. In Kiryat Shemona parents, elderly Israelis and families, who have spent much of the past four weeks in shelters, clambered aboard buses chartered by the Government to take them out of range of the Hezbollah Katyusha rockets.

Outside Danzeger school shelter people could hardly wait to get on board, as organisers ticked off names against a list of those who had applied days earlier.

There were about five hundred leaving from four centres. “We are leaving because it’s dangerous under these Katyushas. We stayed for a month and we thought it would be over by now,” said Boris Rothstein, 32, travelling with his parents.

Avi Shimoni said that his seven-year-old son Orel was finding it hard to be cooped up, living with uncertainty and the wailing sirens that continued throughout yesterday. “The war started on the first day of the school holidays and the kids have done nothing yet,” he said.

Wary of sending out a negative message to the wider public, the Government insisted that the programme was designed only to give 20,000 northern residents a temporary respite. Israel Maimon, an aide to Mr Olmert, said that the evacuees would return after a few days.

As the evacuee buses headed south, Israeli tanks and bulldozers were streaming north to the border. In Lebanon Israeli planes dropped leaflets in the coastal city of Tyre warning citizens that any vehicle driving on roads south of the Litani river would be considered a target. Israeli missiles hit the town of Ghaziyeh during a funeral procession for victims of a previous Israeli strike.

THE FUTURE
In an ideal world

• UN debates amendments to the resolution, taking account of Lebanese objections, and votes on it
• If passed, the Lebanese Army and strengthened Unifil forces are deployed in a southern Lebanon buffer zone
• A second resolution will then be drafted, authorising the creation of a French-led multinational force
• Deployment of multinational force

  Possible pitfalls

• Israel determined to deliver crushing military blow against Hezbollah
• Hezbollah continues to fight while Israeli forces remain on Lebanese soil
• Syria and Iran thwart attempts to disarm Hezbollah
• Fighting delays deployment of multinational force
• Disputes over wording of second UN resolution

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