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Christopher seeks

truce as Israeli

raids continue

BEIRUT: Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded south Lebanon for the 11th straight day on Sunday and Hizbollah guerrillas fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, security sources said.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Israel from Damascus after "good and productive" talks with President Hafez al-Assad on ending the fighting in Lebanon that has killed at least 154 Lebanese, mostly civilians.

Christopher said after meeting Assad on Saturday that he would return to Syria to continue talks on reaching a truce but made clear his search for a ceasefire still had some way to go.

Security sources said Israeli aircraft raided Iqlim al-Toufah ridge, a Hizbollah bastion, as heavy guns shelled a cluster of villages east of the port of Tyre and gunboats fired shells into a key road linking Beirut to the south.

There was no immediate word of casualties on either side of the border.

Two Lebanese soldiers and a civilian were killed in air attacks on Saturday which continued into the night.

Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati in Damascus on Saturday that his guerrillas would stop firing rockets into northern Israel only after Israel halted its blitz.

But he said they would continue to combat Israel's troops occupying a border zone in south Lebanon.

Israel, which began bombarding southern Lebanon on April 11 to try to crush any threat to northern Israel, said earlier it would end its onslaught as soon as Hizbollah stopped its rocket attacks.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez said the U.N. General Assembly would hold an emergency meeting on April 23 on the fighting, which has forced 400,000 refugees to flee their homes in south Lebanon.

An official statement said President Elias Hrawi would go to New York to deliver Lebanon's speech to the Assembly.

JERUSALEM: Israel plans to raze some 60 homes built without authorization near a Jewish settlement outside the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, military sources said on Sunday.

The homes were built without permits on land which will remain under Israeli control following the planned partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Hebron, they said.

"The demolition of houses is not in the spirit of the peace process in the area," he said.-APP