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Fragile peace holds in Lebanon
16/08/2006 10:18 - (SA)
Beirut, Lebanon - Foreign ministers of France, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia were due to arrive in Beirut on Wednesday to work out details on assembling a 15 000-strong international force to oversee peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon.
The force would work with an equal number of Lebanese soldiers to police the cease-fire that took hold on Monday morning and ended 34 days of brutal combat, Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket barrages.
The diplomatic manoeuvres came as the Israeli army had begun withdrawing part of its troops from south Lebanon while Lebanese troops planned to start moving across the Litani River on Thursday in a bid to take control of the war-ravaged region from the Hezbollah fighters.
The UN hopes 3 500 well-equipped international troops can reinforce the UN contingent within 10 to 15 days to help consolidate the fragile cessation of hostilities and create the conditions for Israeli forces to head home, Assistant UN Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said.
Journalists on Tuesday witnessed about 500 Israeli soldiers on foot crossing over the border back into Israel near the Israeli town of Malkiya. Some of them smiled broadly, happy to be out, while others wept.
France was expected to lead the international force. The Italian foreign minister has already visited Beirut and subsequently pledged as many as 3 000 troops. Indonesia and a dozen other countries have also expressed a willingness to help.
However, it remained unclear, UN peacekeeping officials said, how quickly a full force could be assembled and deployed to Lebanon.
In the short term and before international forces arrive, the process involves three armies on the ground and is complicated, given that those of Lebanon and Israel do not have direct contact and a third and central player - Hezbollah fighters - will not be involved.
Positions along the border
The 2 000-strong UN peacekeeping force known as Unifil that has been in south Lebanon for over two decades was to temporarily take up positions along the border.
The zone along the frontier would then be handed to Lebanese troops and the greatly reinforced Unifil force once all Israeli soldiers have withdrawn, the officials said, all of them speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the operations.
"It will be a gradual withdrawal. ... It will take couple of days, even up to one week," a Unifil officer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to reporters.
"We agreed with the Lebanese army that it will start deploying as the Israelis start withdrawing. It could be as early as Thursday, maybe a slight delay," he said.
Those plans, however, depend on the Lebanese government giving the order for the army to move south of the Litani. The cabinet has been unable to meet on the issue since the cease-fire took hold because of deep divisions over what should be done about Hezbollah's arms in the south.
Lebanese refugees, meanwhile, continued streaming back to the south to learn what had become of their homes and livelihoods. Many of them found scenes of near total destruction.
- AP
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