Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, looking extremely tired, defiantly vowed Wednesday that his guerrilla fighters would begin firing rockets deeper into Israel, beyond the northern port of Haifa, and said the Jewish state's two-week-long military offensive against Lebanon was linked to a US-Israeli plan for "a new Middle East." "I declare that we will enter the 'beyond Haifa' stage," the bearded and black-turbanned Shiite cleric said in a speech on Hezbollah's al-Manar television in the early hours of Wednesday. "In the new stage, our attacks will not remain limited to Haifa. Irrespective of the reaction of the enemy forces on the rocketing of Haifa, we will move to the stage of 'beyond Haifa."'
Nasrallah appeared to mock Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who just concluded the first American diplomatic foray in the region since the fighting began July 12 and repeatedly said there was no place in "a new Middle East" for Hezbollah or other Islamist groups bent on Israel's destruction. Rice also backed Israel's refusal to negotiate a quick cease-fire, claiming a lasting settlement could not be reached until Hizbullah was disarmed and unable to launch rocket attacks on Israeli towns and villages.