Israeli Army yet to decide on Lebanon invasion

JERUSALEM: Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz has yet to decide on whether forces need to launch a major ground invasion of Lebanon to cripple Hezbollah, the army said on Sunday.

"The army chief has not made any decision on a large ground incursion into Lebanon," army spokeswoman Brigadier-General Miri Regev told Army Radio even as a Syrian minister warned Israel that a major ground incursion into Lebanon would draw his country into the Middle East conflict.

"If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 km of Damascus," Information Minister Moshen Bilal told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

"What will we do? Stand by with our arms folded? Absolutely not. Without any doubt Syria will intervene in the conflict."

Bilal said Syria wanted above all a ceasefire "as soon as possible" combined with a prisoner exchange and indicated he was working to that end with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, whom he met in recent days in Madrid. 

Fourteen Arab governments have backed a call for an emergency summit on violence between Israel and Hezbollah and the Palestinians, but the Arab League remained one vote shy of a two-thirds majority needed to convene a meeting. 

A senior Arab League official said on Sunday that Somalia, Mauritania, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and the Comoros Islands had joined seven other Arab League members to support a Yemeni proposal for a summit.