THE LEBANESE Prime Minister, Mr Rafiq al Hariri, fresh from consultations with the Syrians, said he hoped the crisis in the south of his country would be resolved within "three or four days". This cryptic statement was interpreted for me by his spokesman, Mr Nuhad Mashnouk, who said Mr al Hariri sought to bring about a ceasefire by this morning.
"The resistance needs time to contact its fighters and order them to stop firing," Mr Mashnouk said. Once a temporary ceasefire lasting four or five days has been imposed, the concerned parties will negotiate to end formally Israel's Grapes of Wrath operation.
However, the UN spokesman in southern Lebanon, Mr Timor Goksel, told The Irish Times that the level of exchanges of fire had not abated. "In the present climate of violence a ceasefire cannot be achieved in a day," he said.
An official Lebanese source said Lebanon, Syria and France, backed by the EU's Italian presidency, were attempting to draw out negotiations with Israel and the US to prevent the cancellation or by passing of UN Security Council Resolution 425, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from its occupation zone in southern Lebanon.
"No Lebanese government is in a position to by pass 425," he said firmly. "Israel's refusal to withdraw since 1978, when the resolution was adopted, demonstrates clearly that Israel has no intention of withdrawing except under strong pressure from the international community."
"The French seek to make use of the present situation to effect a quick solution based on the 1993 agreement," the source said. This accord, brokered by the US during Israel's Operation Accountability of July 1993, prohibited attack on civilians by either side.
Israel has routinely violated this ban to strike at Hizbullah guerrillas infiltrating its occupation zone through villages in the UN buffer area. Last month, however, Hizbullah decided to insist that Israel abide by the 1993 accord or suffer retaliation against its own citizens.
At the same time, Hizbullah stepped up its operations in the 80km buffer zone north of the border, killing six Israeli soldiers and wounding 25.
A furious Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, declared Israel would not "dance to a tune" - played by Hizbullah, and demanded the disarming of its militia.
The US told Lebanon to "neutralise" Hizbullah: the Lebanese - refused to take any action until Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanese territory. This was followed, on March 30th, by an Israeli missile attack on the village of Yatar, in which two Lebanese were killed, "by mistake", and a retaliatory firing of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.
Then, on April 8th, two Lebanese boys died when they triggered an explosive device at the village of Brachit in the Irish sector of the UN zone. The next morning Hizbullah fired 28 Katyushas into Israel, wounding 13 and sending 20 civilians into hospital. The trigger for Grapes of Wrath, launched on April 11th, was the killing of an Israeli officer by a Hizbullah suicide bomber.
This build up coincided with a serious deterioration of morale in and defections from Israel's 2,000-2,500 strong surrogate South Lebanon Army (SLA), which since 1976 has policed the occupation zone on Israel's behalf.
SLA members fear for both their livelihood and their lives should Israel reach a peace treaty with Lebanon. And with good reason, for Lebanese who collaborated with Israel during its 1982-85 occupation of the whole of the south were killed by members of the resistance after Israel withdrew.
Eager to maintain the force and sustain its morale, Israel demands the integration of the SLA into the post war Lebanese army, a demand rejected by Lebanon, which said it would try SLA members for "treason".
Already swamped with Palestinian collaborators who cannot live in the Palestinian self rule areas, Israel remains reluctant to take responsibility for SLA men in its service and has proposed that the SLA issue be included in negotiations over Operation Grapes of Wrath.
This would be totally unacceptable to all Lebanese who see the operation as an instrument for an imposed peace, to quote the headline on the cover of the Maronite nationalist weekly Magazine.
Today the Maronites oppose the imposed peace they welcomed in 1984 as the price for Israel's withdrawal from the country. At the very moment Israeli gunners trained their 155mm howitzers on the UN base at Qana, the village where Christ transformed water into wine at a wedding, students from all sects demonstrated in solidarity with the south at the Church of Mar Elias at Antelias in the foothills of the Maronite mountain heartland.
The massacre at Qana has devastated the Lebanese, who are furious at what Nicole Maillard, a broadcaster, called "the West's double standards... Think what would happen if the British bombed Dublin and smashed up the villages along the border with Northern Ireland in retaliation for an IRA attack in Belfast.
"The US, the UN, the world would protest and put an end to the assault. Things are different here because it is Israel that is attacking us. Everyone blames Hizbullah. No one blames Israel for occupying part of our country."
Anger and disgust have unified the Lebanese as never before.
