But Saniora said talk of a larger peace package must wait until the firing
stops.
"We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of
innocent people," he told a gathering of foreign diplomats. But he underlined
that Lebanon stands by ideas for disarming Hezbollah that it put forward earlier
this week and that Rice praised.
He took a tough line and hinted that any Hezbollah response to the airstrike
at the village of Qana was justified.
"As long as the aggression continues there is response to be exercised," he
said, praising Hezbollah's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah for his "sacrifices."
Lebanon demanded an international probe.
Hezbollah said on its Al-Manar television that it will retaliate, vowing,
"The massacre at Qana will not go unanswered." It hit northern Israel on Sunday
with 157 rockets - the highest one-day total during the offensive -
with one Israeli moderately wounded and 12 others lightly hurt, medics said.
Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, demanded an
immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, warning the Muslim world will "not forgive"
nations that stand in the way of stopping the fighting.
Lebanese anger was heightened by memories of a 1996 Israeli artillery
bombardment that hit a U.N. base in Qana, killing more than 100 Lebanese who had
taken refuge from fighting. That attack sparked an international outcry that
forced a halt to an Israeli offensive.
In Beirut, some 5,000 protesters gathered in downtown Beirut, at one point
attacking a U.N. building and burning American flags, shouting, "Destroy Tel
Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv" and chanting for Hezbollah's ally Syria to hit Israel.
Another protest by about 50 people on a road leading to the U.S. Embassy forced
security forces to close the road there.
Images of children's bodies tangled in the building's ruins, being carried
away on blankets or wrapped in plastic sheeting were aired on Arab news
networks.
In Qana, Khalil Shalhoub was helping pull out the dead until he saw his
brother's body taken out on a stretcher.
"Why are they killing us? What have we done?" he screamed.
Israel said Hezbollah had fired more than 40 rockets from Qana before the
airstrike, including several from near the building that was bombed.
