Israel says situation in Lebanon 'explosive' as cease-fire tested again

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Israel's foreign minister called the situation in Lebanon "explosive" and pressed the international community to work quickly to deploy peacekeeping troops as the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah was further tested Wednesday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora urged the U.S. to help end Israel's sea and air blockade, saying his country was making "every effort" to secure its borders.

"Time is working against those who would like to see this resolution applied," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said after talks her French counterpart, Phillipe Douste-Blazy. "We are now in the most sensitive and explosive position."

"We therefore need extremely quick action from the international community," she said.

An Aug. 11 U.N. resolution outlined a cease-fire agreement that called for a 15,000-member force of international peacekeepers and another 15,000 Lebanese army troops to deploy to southern Lebanon, as Israeli troops withdraw.

But efforts to raise the force were moving slowly with the European Union nations expected to lead it reluctant to commit troops without safeguards to ensure they do not get sucked into the conflict.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not lift its air and sea blockade until international peacekeepers were deployed at the Beirut international airport and along the Lebanese border with Syria. Hezbollah's vast arsenal of rockets and other weapons is believed to originate in Iran and reach the guerrillas across the Syrian border.

"The United States can support us in putting real pressure on Israel to lift the siege," the Western-backed Saniora said Wednesday. His government has called the blockade a violation of the U.N.-brokered cease-fire, and has asked the international community to intervene.

Olmert's tough stance on the blockade appeared to be an attempt to pressure the international community to speed the dispatch of a vanguard of the 15,000-strong force of international peacekeepers called for by the cease-fire agreement.

Sporadic violence has marked the U.N.-brokered cease-fire that took hold Aug. 14 and ended 34 days of ferocious fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. But the truce has held thus far.

The cease-fire was tested Wednesday when the Israeli army fired artillery into a disputed border region in response to what it said was an attack from inside Lebanon.