Beirut, Lebanon – Top foreign diplomats on Wednesday planned the dispatch of a 15,000-strong international force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon, but the government was divided over whether Hezbollah should lay down its arms or even withdraw them from the border with Israel.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it would help tens of thousands of people reconstruct homes that were destroyed in a month of war with Israel, a move likely to boost its standing among Shiite Muslims, who make up about 35 percent of Lebanon’s 4 million people.
The mayor of a southern town said 32 more bodies were pulled from rubble, as rescue workers drove into areas that were previously inaccessible because of the heavy fighting.
Visiting Beirut on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said France would commit troops to the United Nations peacekeeping force that will deploy in south Lebanon, but did not say how many soldiers. The international force, which will be bolstered by 15,000 troops from Lebanon, will police the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah fighters that ended 34 days of fighting on Monday.
The diplomatic maneuvers came as the Israeli army withdrew more troops from southern Lebanon while Lebanese troops prepared to move across the Litani River on Thursday to take control of the war-ravaged region from Hezbollah guerrillas.
The Lebanese army will begin moving Thursday into a “significant part” of south Lebanon left behind by Israeli troops, U.N. peacekeeping official Richard Morczynski said.
Small military delegations from Israel and Lebanon agreed to details of troop movements at a meeting Wednesday with the U.N.
peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL at the border crossing point at Ras Naquora. The 2,000-strong UNIFIL has been in southern Lebanon for more than two decades.
Douste-Blazy urged Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon, saying it was unnecessary because the U.N.-imposed cease-fire was holding.
“The blockade imposed on the airport and Lebanese ports should be lifted. We ask Israeli authorities to lift the land and sea siege on Lebanon. And we ask the Lebanese government to strengthen monitoring” of points of entry to insure Hezbollah weapons are banned, Douste-Blazy said.
The blockade was instituted shortly after fighting began July 12, when Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel bombed the Beirut international airport, blocked seaports and began destroying road links to Syria.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the blockade is still necessary until the peacekeeping force is in place to prevent the Islamic militant group from rearming.
“Israel cannot allow a situation in which Hezbollah could be strategically rearmed,” he said, adding that “Israel will do everything we can to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid to the people of Lebanon” in the interim.
The U.N. hopes 3,500 international troops can reinforce a 2,000-strong U.N. contingent already on the ground within 10 to 15 days to help consolidate the cease-fire and create conditions for Israeli forces to head home, Assistant U.N. Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said.
Those plans, however, depend on the full compliance of the Lebanese government. The Cabinet had been unable to meet on the issue since the cease-fire because of divisions over what should be done about Hezbollah’s arms in the south, but finally met late Wednesday.
Ali Hassan Khalil, a legislator who held talks with Saniora Wednesday on behalf of the Hezbollah, said “everyone was keen on having consensus.” The arrangement taking shape among Lebanese politicians, military officials and Hezbollah would call for guerrillas to not carry weapons or use their heavily fortified bunkers to fire rockets. There would be no requirement to move weapons north of the Litani, for the time being.
Israel’s military chief said Wednesday that Israeli soldiers would remain in southern Lebanon for months, if necessary, until replaced by U.N. and Lebanese army soldiers, Israel Radio reported.
Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz spoke in response to an intelligence assessment that it could take months for the U.N.-Lebanese force to deploy, the radio station reported. On Tuesday, Halutz had predicted Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within seven to 10 days.
In a sign of lingering danger in south Lebanon, security officials said an explosive detonated Wednesday in the town of Nabatiyeh, killing a 20-year-old man. The victim, Ali Turkieh, stepped on the bomb outside his family home. A girl in the area was injured by explosives a day earlier.
Aid officials said unexploded bombs littering southern Lebanon were forcing relief workers to move gingerly to deliver food and fuel to people cut off by weeks of fighting and to evacuate war wounded to hospitals. Lebanese authorities and Hezbollah sent teams across south Lebanon to clear explosives from the battlefield.
At a makeshift registration center set up in a Beirut high school, Hezbollah officials with pens and notebooks wrote down contact details of hundreds of people who need money to rebuild.
The group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has promised money for civilians to pay rent and buy furniture.
A Hezbollah official said all destroyed buildings will be reconstructed exactly as they were. The source of the funding was unclear, though Hezbollah receives money from Iran.
“We will use the same maps,” he said. “We will give their flats back but they will be new flats.” Lebanese refugees returning home have clogged the road from Beirut to the southern port of Tyre, but farther south near the Israeli border the scene is more desolate, said Annick Bouvier, spokeswoman in Geneva for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“There is a lot of unexploded ordnance and in the very remote areas of southern Lebanon,” Bouvier told The Associated Press.
“There is not much traffic because it is a highly dangerous area to move due to unexploded ordnance.” Douste-Blazy and his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, arrived in Beirut for talks early Wednesday. A delegation of the 56-country Organization of the Islamic Conference also traveled to Beirut by land from Syria.
France was expected to lead the international force. The Italian foreign minister has already pledged as many as 3,000 troops.
Indonesia and a dozen other countries have expressed willingness to help.
However, it remained unclear how quickly a full force could be deployed. The process involves three armies on the ground and is complicated, given that the Lebanese and Israeli armies do not have direct contact and a third and central player – Hezbollah guerrillas – will not be involved.
At least 842 people were killed in Lebanon during the 34-day campaign, most of them civilians. Israel suffered 157 dead – including 118 soldiers.
