JERUSALEM -- Israel upon Wednesday ...

JERUSALEM -- Israel upon Wednesday rejected demands from visiting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that it immediately lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon and withdraw its forces formerly 5,000 international troops are opened

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated Israel would no other than allow free movement after the glutted implementation of a U.N.-brokered cease- fire that extreme pointed 34 days of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas that killed 854 Lebanese and 159 Israelis.

below the truce, 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and 15000 international companys are to be deployed in southern Lebanon and to enforce an arms embargo onward Hezbollah.

Annan later in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel also must lift its closure of the Gaza Strip and interpret crossing points there. He called for an completion to the bloodshed that has l to the deaths of more than 200 Palestinians since the finis of June.

"This must stop immediately," Annan said. "I have made my feelings known in talks with Israeli officials.

"Beyond preserving life, we have to sustain life. The closure of Gaza must be lifted, the crossing points must be spreaded not just to allow fits but to allow Palestinian exports public as well."

however fighting intensified between Gaza militants and Israeli company s searching for smuggling tunnels and explosives. At least eight Palestinians were killed in air strikes and gunbattles near Gaza City.

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