Halt truce breaches

Top Lebanese officials have urged Washington and Paris to press Israel to uphold a ceasefire, after dozens of military operations on Lebanese soil that Beirut has deemed violations, two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters yesterday.

Deadly Israeli strikes on south Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches on an Israeli military post have put a US-brokered ceasefire between the two in an increasingly fragile position less than a week after it came into effect.

Nine people were killed in the Israeli strikes on villages in southern Lebanon later on Monday, after Israel said it was taking aim at dozens of Hezbollah targets in retaliation for an attack claimed by the militant group during a fragile ceasefire.

Hezbollah said it had launched an attack targeting an Israeli position in "the occupied hills of Kfar Shouba", in a disputed part of the border area between Israel and Lebanon.

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally who negotiated the deal on behalf of Lebanon, spoke to officials at the White House and French presidency late Monday and expressed concern about the state of the ceasefire, the sources said.

Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry were immediately available to comment. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Monday, saying both sides should adhere to the ceasefire.