Lebanese troops deploy in UN ceasefire plan

Lebanese troops, tanks and armoured vehicles began deploying today to southern Lebanon in line with a UN ceasefire plan to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The vanguard of the force crossed the Litani River at its mouth on the Mediterranean coastline, 30 kilometres north of the Israeli border, at about 6.40am local time (3.40am Irish time).

Ten armoured carriers mounted on flatbed trucks drove across a newly installed metal bridge over the river, escorted by several other military vehicles. The bridge was built by the army to replace a structure that was bombed by Israeli warplanes during the 34-day offensive.

Flatbed trucks carrying a total of 20 tanks arrived in the town of Marjayoun, a key town near the Israeli border that was briefly occupied by Israeli forces during their incursion into Lebanon last week. There were also a dozen trucks loaded with troops and hoisting Lebanese flags.

The convoy drove through the destroyed part of the inland town, 10 kilometres north of Israel’s Upper Galilee panhandle, kicking up dust.

Brigadier General Charles Sheikhani, speaking outside the Marjayoun military barracks where Israeli troops were based during their brief occupation, said the entire 10th Brigade of 2,500 men he commands would be in charge of a region from Khardali to Chebaa in the west and east to the border town of Kfar Kila to the south.

“Since 1968 the army has not come here. This is our first time since then. We’re happy to deploy our army to the south of Lebanon,” Sheikhani said. The barracks was the military headquarters of Israel and its allied Lebanese militia during the 1982-to-2000 occupation of the region.

On the coastal road, trucks and jeeps, hoisting Lebanese flags and carrying soldiers, streamed down toward the river and south toward the port city of Tyre. Troops also were expected to be brought in by sea to Tyre port later in the deployment.

Under the deployment plan, the troops are expected to take positions on roads and main intersections in southern towns and villages.

The army deployment will continue for a few days “to spread Lebanese government authority over all Lebanese territory, including south of the Litani River”, a senior military official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to make statements to the media.

An Associated Press reporter saw about 40 military trucks and jeeps, carrying soldiers, equipment, luggage and plastic water tanks, heading to south Lebanon before dawn. The trucks and jeeps hoisted Lebanese flags as they drove into central Beirut on their way to south Lebanon.

The government has been assembling thousands of troops north of the Litani for the last few days.

In conjunction with UN peacekeepers already in the south, the army will gradually take over territory from which Israeli forces are withdrawing.

The move came a few hours after the Israeli military began handing over positions to the United Nations early today, stepping up its withdrawal from southern Lebanon after the Lebanese government agreed to deploy troops near Israel’s border for the first time in 40 years.

“The process of transferring authority has begun,” an Israeli army statement said, adding that an agreement had been reached after a three-way meeting between Israeli and Lebanese officers and a representative of the UN force, UNIFIL.

More than 50% of the areas Israel holds have been transferred already, the Israeli military said. The army said one area extends north and east of the town of Marjayoun and another area further west.

Under a UN ceasefire agreement, which has been in effect since Monday morning, Israel was to transfer control of its positions in southern Lebanon to UNIFIL, who would then turn it over to the Lebanese army.

Earlier yesterday, the Lebanese cabinet approved a plan to deploy the Lebanese army south of the Litani River to extend government control in the region for the first time in nearly four decades.

The government ordered the army to “ensure respect” for the Blue Line, the UN-demarcated border between Lebanon and Israel, and “apply the existing laws with regard to any weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state”.

That provision does not require Hezbollah to give up its arms, but rather directs them to keep them off the streets.

The Lebanese army has been preparing troops for the past few days. The UN ceasefire plan calls for the force to reach 15,000 and to be joined eventually by an equal number of international peacekeepers to patrol the region between the Israeli border and the Litani River.

But the Lebanese government said soldiers would not ”chase” or “take revenge” on Hezbollah guerrillas in a bid to disarm the fighters who fiercely resisted the Israeli invasion.

“The will be no confrontation between the army and brothers in Hezbollah…That is not the army’s mission…They are not going to chase or, God forbid, exact revenge (on Hezbollah),” said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi after the two-hour cabinet meeting yesterday.

The cabinet decision, while falling short of UN and Israeli insistence on Hezbollah’s disarmament, was a major step in meeting demands that militants be removed from the Jewish state’s northern frontier.

The army deployment marks the extension of government sovereignty over the whole country for the first time since 1969, when a weak Lebanese government sanctioned Palestinian guerrilla cross-border attacks on Israel.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev did not address a question about his government’s response to the lack of action on Hezbollah arms.

“Israel supports the full and expeditious implementation of (Security Council Resolution) 1701 and calls on the Lebanese side to do its utmost to implement the resolution in full,” he said when queried about the Lebanese government decision.

As the government finally adopted the plan to implement the three-day-old ceasefire, the Lebanese death toll rose to at least 842 when rescue workers pulled 32 bodies from the rubble in the southern town of Srifa, the target of some of Israel’s heaviest bombardment in the 34-day conflict.

The Lebanese death toll was assembled from reports by security and police officials, doctors, civil-defence workers, morgue attendants and the military.

The Israeli toll was 157, according to its military and government.

In a nationally televised address from Government House, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora praised Lebanon’s resistance, saying it showed that Israel’s military was “no longer a force that cannot be resisted, an army that cannot be defeated”.

He said Lebanon had the right to take charge of its destiny and warned of foreign meddling, which has made the country a battleground for Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians and Iranians over the decades.

“I am not hiding from you that complacency regarding this right would expose our country to becoming once again an arena for regional and international disputes,” he said.