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GUEST: Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy In Focus Project, and professor of Politics at University of San Francisco. He is author of “Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism”

Hezbollah sent a volley of rockets into Israel on Sunday killing 12 Israeli soldiers and three civilians. Israel launched a 30-minute day-time air raid that once again struck Beirut’s southern suburbs, and more than doubled the usual number of attacks across the country.

The United Nations was expected to vote on a resolution this past weekend addressing the on-going Israeli assault of Lebanon. Since Israel began bombing on July 12, the UN Security Council has failed to take any action, except for issuing two statements reacting to Israeli attacks on a UN observer post and a building crowded with civilians in Qana. The main obstacle has been the US’s refusal to support an immediate ceasefire. The US and France are currently circulating a draft resolution which Israel has reacted to positively. However, the Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said yesterday that the attacks on Lebanon would continue. The US-France draft resolution makes no explicit mention of an Israeli withdrawal, and implicitly allows Israeli defensive operations. Instead, it calls in the longer-term for a buffer zone in southern Lebanon — which Hezbollah currently controls and where Israeli troops are now fighting. Only Lebanese armed forces and UN-mandated international troops would be allowed in the zone. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that the UN proposal was only a “first step” and that more violence could be expected in the short term because “these things take time to wind down.”

Read Stephen Zunes’ article on Hezbollah here.