BEIRUT, 1 August 2006 — Israel rejected mounting calls for a truce in its war on Hezbollah yesterday despite global outrage over an attack that killed at least 60 civilians, most of them children, but a lull in raids allowed thousands of southern Lebanese to flee to safer havens.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew back to Washington after a weekend visit to Israel overshadowed by the carnage in the south Lebanese village of Qana, saying she was convinced that “an urgent cease-fire and a lasting settlement” could be achieved this week.

But as Lebanon was plunged into mourning over the biggest single loss of life since Israel unleashed its war machine against its northern neighbor on July 12, the Jewish state warned it would widen its offensive on Hezbollah.

Israel had agreed to halt airstrikes for 48 hours pending an investigation into Sunday’s attack on Qana, but its warplanes were back in action yesterday, and a Lebanese soldier was killed in a gunboat attack.

“If there is an immediate cease-fire, the extremists will immediately rear their heads,” Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a stormy Parliament session in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later said a cease-fire was possible only “when the threat over our heads is removed, when our kidnapped soldiers return to their homes and when we can live in security.” Encouraged by the temporary halt in air bombardments, however brief, tens of thousands of villagers fled southern Lebanon, the Hezbollah heartland which has borne the brunt of the onslaught.

Carrying piles of luggage, mattresses and blankets on car rooftops or pickup trucks, people streamed from mountain villages toward the coastal highway leading north to Beirut.

Rescue teams were preparing to continue the search for bodies still under the ruins of a shelter leveled by Israel forces as personal possessions, bags, and clothes of the dead, were piled up outside. “We will continue on Monday with clearing up the ruins in the hope of taking out more corpses, as families have told us that there are more missing people,” local civil defense chief Salam Daher said.

Flags flew at half-staff throughout Lebanon and banks and public institutions were closed in memory of the victims of what one Beirut newspaper charged was “butchery.” Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora denounced the Qana carnage as a “war crime,” while the Hezbollah vowed that “this horrible massacre... will not remain unpunished.” Large pictures of dead children being retrieved from under the rubble were splashed across newspapers in Lebanon and across the Arab world, some framed in heavy black borders topped with blood-red headlines.

“How many babies have to die?” asked the English-language Daily Star newspaper.

Angry demonstrators took to the streets in several Arab capitals, some burning Israeli flags and denouncing the US administration for its staunch backing of Israel. Lebanese Red Cross teams recovered 20 bodies yesterday alone, among them that of an eight-year-old child, on roads in the south of the country.

The UN Security Council met immediately after the attack on Qana to adopt a resolution which, in unusually emotional language, expressed its “extreme shock and distress” at the casualties. But it stopped short both of condemning Israel and of calling for a cease-fire after the United States had rejected a draft describing the attack on Qana “deliberate.”

Hezbollah fired a missile on an Israeli warship off the coast of Tyre yesterday, police said, but the Israeli Army denied the claim.

The group’s military wing, the Islamic Resistance, claimed in a statement that its fighters had “destroyed a Zionist warship ... off Tyre.” “At 4:30 p.m. (1330 GMT), the Islamic Resistance attacked with its blessed missiles an Israeli SAAR 4.5 (fast attack missile boat), with a crew of 53 officers and soldiers, off the coast of Tyre,” it said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had appealed to the council to call for an immediate cease-fire, and warned Israel and Hezbollah they were both likely guilty of “grave breaches of international humanitarian law.”

Arab League chief Amr Moussa voiced disappointment at the “insufficient” Security Council statement. “It now suffers from a great trust deficit and this is a dangerous state of affairs because it is the main international tool for preserving peace and security in the world,” he said.