KHARDALI (Lebanon), Aug 17: Lebanese troops deployed in south Lebanon on Thursday, linking up with UN peacekeepers to take control of Hezbollah strongholds as Israeli forces pulled back after their 34-day war with the guerrillas.
Hezbollah fighters melted away as the troops crossed the Litani River, 20kms from the Israeli border, to take over a region the army has not controlled for decades.
Dozens of people lined roads, waving red and white Lebanese flags and throwing rice and flowers in celebration.
“May God protect you,” 64-year-old Khadeeja Sheet yelled at the passing soldiers. “We support nobody except for our army.”
A UN-backed truce halted the fighting on Monday. The Security Council adopted a resolution calling for the Lebanese army and an expanded UN force of up to 15,000 troops to deploy in the south and replace Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
The United Nations has said it hopes 3,500 new UN troops can join UNIFIL, the 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force already in Lebanon, within two weeks.
France said on Thursday it would send an extra 200 troops to the new force — fewer than some UN officials had hoped for.
More than 100 Lebanese trucks, troop carriers and jeeps streamed across a makeshift bridge on the Litani to the mainly Christian town of Marjayoun, eight kilometres from the Israeli border.
UNIFIL said about 800 Lebanese troops had deployed in the Marjayoun area and some 500 around the town of Tibnin.
The Israeli army said it had begun ‘transferring responsibility’ in the south in a staged process that was ‘conditional on the reinforcement of UNIFIL and the ability of the Lebanese army to take effective control of the area’.
More than 200,000 refugees have returned to the shattered south without waiting for the Israelis to complete their pullout and despite unexploded munitions strewn over the region.
Two children were killed by a cluster bomb explosion in the southern town of Naqoura on Thursday, UN officials said. There was no sign of Hezbollah guerillas.
A passenger flight landed at Beirut international airport for the first time in five weeks, easing an air blockade of Lebanon that Israel imposed. An airliner of Middle East Airlines flew in from Amman. —Reuters
