More than half of respondents said Israel should press the offensive until Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is killed. Seventeen percent said Israel should cease fire and enter talks with the radical Shi'ite group or the Lebanese government.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz also scored high approval ratings. Asked by Yediot to rate their performances in the crisis, 78 percent of respondents praised Olmert and 72 percent commended Peretz.

Ayalon: Wrong time

for Rice

Israel's ambassador to Washington doesn't believe it is the right time for the U.S. secretary of state to come to the Middle East. The State Department announced Monday that Condoleezza Rice plans to visit the region "at some point in the future."

The formal announcement apparently was triggered by an inadvertently recorded conversation between President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in which Bush said he would send Rice to the region.

Asked about the plan, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon told CNN, "Right now, I think the time is wrong, and I think she thinks the time is wrong."

U.N., Israel at odds

Israel's foreign minister and a U.N. envoy reportedly disagree over the sequence of steps necessary to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel wants the three soldiers recently abducted by Hezbollah and Hamas to be returned before it halts its attacks in Lebanon, but the United Nations team, headed by envoy Vijay Nambiar, proposed that the two steps be taken simultaneously, Ha'aretz reported. Israel also reportedly wants Lebanon to deploy its own troops along the Israel-Lebanon border.

The U.N. team also met with Lebanese government officials. Also Tuesday, an Israeli defense official said Israel is not ruling out a ground invasion of Lebanon. "The army has many possibilities for action," said the deputy chief of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky.

Tehran pulling strings?

Iran has 200 of its personnel stationed in Lebanon, a senior Iranian military official was quoted Sunday as saying.

The London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted an unnamed Iranian military official as saying his country had stationed 200 advisers in Lebanon to help Hezbollah fight Israel.

The official was further quoted as saying that in recent years Iran supplied Hezbollah with 11,000 military-grade missiles.

Scrutiny of Iran's support for its Lebanese proxy has intensified since an Israeli navy ship was attacked off Beirut's coast last Friday. Israel said the missile fired by Hezbollah, which killed four sailors, was Iranian-made. Iran denied involvement.

Fuel for sale

The U.S. Defense Department is selling Israel jet fuel "to keep peace and security in the region," the Pentagon said last Friday. The statement announcing the sale did not say when Israel requested the fuel, valued at up to $210 million.

"The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory," the Pentagon said in the notice of such sales that it is required to give Congress, according to a Reuters report.

The fuel will be consumed while Israeli aircraft are "in use to keep peace and security in the region," the notice said. The air force's bombardment of Lebanon since last week is its most serious engagement since the 1982 Lebanon War.

Reservists mustered

Israel has earmarked reserve troops to help wage the Lebanon campaign. Security sources said Tuesday that Defense Minister Amir Peretz had approved call-ups for three reservist combat regiments, most of which will serve in the West Bank so that regular units can be diverted to the northern front.

According to security sources, the Defense Ministry is prepared to mobilize an entire division ‹ thousands of troops and vehicles ‹ should the campaign against Hezbollah require large-scale incursions into southern Lebanon.

From Tokyo to Ramallah

Japan has announced $30 million in assistance for the Palestinians. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced the disbursement in a meeting Thursday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

The United States has led efforts to cut off the Palestinian Authority now that it is governed by the terrorist group Hamas, but makes exceptions for Abbas, a relative moderate who was elected separately. Japan is the third-largest donor to the Palestinians, after the United States and European Union. Most of the money will be spent on water, sanitation and vaccination projects.

Koizumi ‹ who said he was "extremely worried" about the recent escalation in regional violence ‹ met Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Friday with Jordanian King Abdullah II, and announced plans to develop the Jordan Valley in coordination with Israel, the Palestinians and Jordan.‹ compiled by Paula Amann