JERUSALEM, Aug 2: Israel believes it will be able to press ahead with its offensive against Hezbollah for at least another week before major powers finalise terms for a ceasefire and stabilisation force, Israeli officials said on Wednesday.

As Israeli forces widened their assault, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert started preparing the ground for an end to the fighting in Lebanon by asserting that Hezbollah had already suffered heavy losses.

“It’s the beginning of the end,” a senior Israeli government official said of the offensive launched on July 12 after Hezbollah captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid.

“But the diplomatic process is like the revolutions of a locomotive engine, first it is slow and then it gathers momentum. We’ve just left the station,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ceasefire could be reached in a matter of days, not weeks. But she said certain conditions had to be put in place first, namely strengthening Lebanese control over the southern part of the country to prevent more Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

Israeli officials said the army’s immediate goal was to widen the air and ground offensive in order to inflict as much damage as possible on the guerrilla group before the U.N. Security Council intervenes to stop the fighting.

But Olmert said he had never promised the people of Israel that its offensive would destroy all of Hezbollah’s missiles.

“Expectations should be in check. It’s a completely different kind of war,” an Israeli official said.

Diplomats said differences remain between major powers over whether a ceasefire would precede or follow the deployment of a stabilisation force, and that Israel was taking advantage of the dispute to press ahead with its offensive.

While Israel would like to have another 14 days for an expanded air and ground offensive, officials acknowledged that the Security Council could intervene before then.

Israeli officials said they did not expect a meeting of U.N. Security Council foreign ministers to take place until next week. “That means we will have until the middle of next week, at least,” one senior Israeli official said.

Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on Tuesday the military campaign could end in weeks despite international pressure for a ceasefire sooner.

Israel has balked at France’s draft Security Council resolution, which says the stabilisation force should be deployed only after a truce and after Israel and Lebanon have “agreed in principle” on a framework for a permanent ceasefire.—Reuters