Israel needs 2 weeks for Lebanon sweep: Minister

Jerusalem, Aug 1: A senior Israeli cabinet minister today said the army needed 10 days to two weeks to push Hizbollah guerrillas back from the border under an expanded offensive approved by the government overnight.

''I reckon the time required for the (army) to complete the job, and by that I mean that the area in which we want the international force to deploy is cleansed of Hizbollah, will take around 10 days to two weeks,'' Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defence minister, told Army Radio.

REUTERS