Israel Begins Handover of Border Zone

08/31/2006

JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israeli army said Thursday that it has transferred control over a portion of the Israel-Lebanon border to Lebanese and international troops for the first time in two decades.

Lebanese and U.N. troops began taking up positions in southern Lebanon two weeks ago as part of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

Before the war, Hezbollah had been effectively in charge of southern Lebanon, which they used as a base to launch sporadic attacks on Israel. When the fighting ended, Israeli troops occupied a security zone about 9 miles inside Lebanon. The army has been slowly transferring control of that zone to arriving Lebanese and U.N. troops since then.

On Wednesday, the army withdrew from a small area of the border near the Israeli town of Metulla, putting Lebanese and international troops in control of a section of the border for the first time in more than two decades, the army said Thursday.

A Lebanese security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Israeli troops withdrew from the Kfar Chouba, Bastra and Chebaa village areas. The Lebanese army sent reconnaissance teams to the areas today, and they had just begun deploying troops there.

The fighting caused billions of dollars in damage to Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora told a donors conference in Sweden on Thursday.

“Moreover, Lebanon’s well-known achievements in 15 years of postwar development have been wiped out in a matter of days by Israel’s deadly military machine,” he said.

The Israeli army did not say how many of its troops remained in Lebanon, but said it has been steadily pulling out and has evacuated more than two-thirds of the area it had occupied.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed a request Wednesday by visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israel fully withdraw its forces once 5,000 of the expected 15,000 international troops were deployed.

Foreign forces were heading toward Lebanon on Thursday to quickly join the U.N. mission.

A battalion of 1,000 Italian troops is expected on Saturday, in the largest addition so far to the growing U.N. peacekeeping force. The troops will arrive by ship in the coastal city of Tyre, U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko told The Associated Press. A second Italian contingent will arrive Sunday in the capital, Beirut.

A five-ship Italian fleet set off for Lebanon on Tuesday carrying Italian marines and engineering corps specialists, the vanguard of a 2,500-strong contingent Italy is contributing to the U.N. force.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Thursday it will send its first troop battalion, and a shipment of tanks and heavy armor, to the international force next week.

Troops will leave the central French city of Orleans on Sept. 4 for the Mediterranean port of Toulon. They will arrive in southern Lebanon by ship on Sept. 10, and will be operational on Sept. 15, Alliot-Marie told a news conference.

France, which will initially lead the strengthened force, has about 400 troops in the UNIFIL force now and plans to expand that to 2,000.

Annan had also asked that Israel immediately lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon, a request that Olmert also sidestepped, saying only that Israel wanted a full implementation of the cease-fire.

Annan, who was on an 11-day Mideast tour to shore up the shaky truce, arrived in Syria on Thursday to press its government to join international efforts to stop the flow of arms to Hezbollah and win the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by the guerrillas on July 12, in an attack that sparked the fighting. Syria and Iran are Hezbollah’s two main patrons.

About 60 governments and aid organizations were meeting in Stockholm hoping to raise $500 million to help Lebanon rebuild roads, bridges and homes shattered by the war. Lebanese Economy Minister Sami Haddad said the most urgent need was 10,000 prefabricated houses for families whose homes were destroyed by Israeli bombing.

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown urged Israel to immediately lift the blockade, saying it was hampering relief efforts in Lebanon.

“Aid when there is a blockade is like putting someone on life support when there is a foot on their wind pipe,” he said in a speech to delegates at the donors’ conference.