"Oh, we never meant disarm! Peace? Never mind."
Posted on 08/15/2006 5:59:48 AM PDT by tobyprissy
Israel starts pullback Tue Aug 15, 2006 08:09 AM ET
By Lin Noueihed
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Thousands of refugees headed home to south Lebanon on Tuesday as a U.N. truce between Israel and Hizbollah held for a second day and Israeli forces began pulling back from some positions they had occupied.
The Israeli army, which had poured 30,000 troops into the south to fight Hizbollah guerrillas, plans to start handing over some pockets of territory to U.N. troops in a day or two, Israeli officials and Western diplomats said.
Israel's expedited timetable for withdrawing reflects concerns that its forces on the ground are easy targets for Hizbollah attack. "They want a fast exit in one to two weeks," said a Western diplomat briefed by the Israeli army.
Overnight, Israeli troops left the southern Christian town of Marjayoun, Lebanese security sources said. They also left the nearby town of Qlaiah and the village of Ghandouriyeh, scene of ferocious battles over the weekend.
Much of Ghandouriyeh was devastated, and in one area the shattered tracks of an Israeli armoured vehicle lay near a bloodied Israeli military flak jacket. The bodies of five Hizbollah guerrillas killed in the fighting were found.
A Lebanese political source said the Israelis could withdraw completely from Lebanon as early as Wednesday and hand over all their positions to an existing U.N. force, paving the way for the Lebanese army to start deploying in the area from Thursday.
Israel has said it will not withdraw fully until a beefed-up U.N. force and Lebanese army troops deploy in the south.
An army spokeswoman said more Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon overnight, but she declined to give numbers. Israeli media reports said 1,000 paratroops crossed into Israel, raising to 2,000 the number of soldiers who have returned.
The "cessation of hostilities" remains fragile. The Israeli army said four Hizbollah mortar bombs had landed near troops in the south overnight, causing no casualties. It said on Monday it had killed at least one guerrilla in shootings after the truce.
CHAOTIC TIDE
But the calm has prompted a chaotic tide of Shi'ite Muslim refugees flowing back to southern villages, despite the risk of unexploded munitions left over from the fighting.
"People need to be aware the dangers are very high," said Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. She said there had been at least eight incidents involving unexploded ordnance, but had no word on casualties.
The truce has also allowed many Israelis to leave bomb shelters for the first time in a month.
Thousands of vehicles jammed a bombed-out coastal highway linking Beirut to the south from the early hours of Tuesday.
"I want to put (Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan) Nasrallah's face on the dollar so the whole world can see it," said Majed Aboud, sitting in a truck on the road to the badly bombed village of Qana. "Victory is ours."
Cars, vans and pickup trucks packed with families and belongings strapped to the roof crawled along makeshift roads. Many had pictures of Nasrallah plastered on their windows.
Plans for the expanded U.N. force are still in their early stages. After a meeting of potential troop contributing nations on Monday, diplomats said a "concept of operations" would be ready by Thursday when another meeting is scheduled.
Diplomats say France is likely to lead the force. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was due in Beirut later on Tuesday to discuss the conditions for the deployment of the international force, the reopening of Lebanon's ports and airport, and humanitarian aid, France's foreign ministry said.
Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr said the Lebanese army would send 15,000 troops to the north of the Litani River around the end of the week, ready to enter the southern border area.
But he said the army would not disarm Hizbollah guerrillas, who have controlled the area for six years.
"The army is not going to the south to strip Hizbollah of weapons and do the work Israel did not," he told LBC Television.
The rush by the hundreds of thousands of refugees to head back to villages with no electricity, water and basic services, let alone many destroyed homes, has surprised the authorities.
Nasrallah has said Hizbollah will immediately begin repairing damaged homes and would pay a year's rent and other costs to help the owners of about 15,000 destroyed houses.
About 1,110 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis were killed in the conflict that began after Hizbollah captured two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Israel says it killed 530 Hizbollah fighters. Hizbollah puts the toll at 80.
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© Reuters 2006 Close This Wind
It's hard to disarm a bunch of thugs when the army sent to do it will be fighting alongside them.
They're all in bed together.
Yours is a question, no-one can / will answer, but the enemy loves killing us. The enemy even celebrates when they kill us.
We still don't recognize what and who we are fighting, otherwise lebanon would be a smoldering heap, syria would be in ruins, and iran would be glass.
This whole deal is like a G-d-damned bad joke. When are we and the Israelis going to stop kissing every moslim's ass just to make sure the world likes us?
It ain't going to happen
I've become tired of the BS coming out of DC. Why not go ahead and win this war? Some of our politician act like and talk like we can't win this war. Media outlets inform the enemy of our every move. I'm tired of playing nice with people who want my children dead. DC; if you aren't going to kill the enemy why don't you tell the American citizens so we can vote for people who will kill the enemy?
perhaps, better yet it looks like they are one and the same
sounds like little lebanon is not that ""innocent"" little child
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Okay...so far we've heard from the French, who will head up the UN multinational force, that they have no intention of disarming the Hezbos. Now the feckless Lebanese Army says they won't disarm them either. Kofi should make some good use of Resolution 1701 the next time he goes to the bathroom, because it is absolutely worthless for anything else.
"Oh, we never meant disarm! Peace? Never mind."
heck the entire 'un' is worthless.
Imagine what would happen in the city you live in if a group of thugs were trying to hide twenty truck loads of missles in basements and garages. It would be impossible in America. A call to the cops would end up in a house being surrounded by police, FBI, CIA and National Guard if not the Marines. There is no way for these Hezzies to exist and have the weapons they have unless the whole of Lebanon is either in bed with them or terribly afraid of them.
I doubt there would be any PC going on.
hmmmnnn, based on that,
shes not that innocent
i wood have to suggest she is in bed with them
That's great comfort when we are being killed off in the Islamo-fascist world revolution. When will our leaders learn that our kindness is taken for weakness and exploited every single time.
Where are the kidnapped soldiers? Are they now considered abandoned?
Good bye cease-fire.
Not quite, they are in the limbo of a "prisoner-exchange" which was part of the cease-fire.
They could have accomplished so much more if they weren't hampered by PC concerns about collateral damage. I am sure that they could have fatally hurt the hezbos, maybe not totally wipe them out but made sure thier capabilities to threaten Israel were lowered to the level of small arms and random suicide bombings and the occasional kidnapping.
I'm afraid we'll see one of Saddam's chemical shells explode somewhere in Israel soon. Especially considering the spin this last conflict is getting where the civillian casualties were 7:1 in Israel's favor.
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