BEIRUT, Sept 3: Italian marines and military vehicles landed in Lebanon on Sunday, the second wave of troops and equipment to arrive as part of an expanded UN force to police the fragile truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon Unifil, said 880 Italian troops would reach a staging area east of the southern port of Tyre by the end of the day, to prepare to deploy later along the coast around the city.

Soldiers in tanks drove through streets of bombed out buildings, greeted by small clusters of residents who shouted welcome and signalled ‘V’ for victory.

Trucks and armoured vehicles carrying heavy machineguns landed in the small port of Naqoura, a military plane carrying equipment landed in Beirut, and a ship carrying bulldozers and cranes docked at Beirut port.

The Italian force brings to around 3,200 the number of peacekeepers in Lebanon. The United Nations has said Israeli forces who moved into south Lebanon during the 34-day war should withdraw fully as soon as 5,000 UN troops have arrived.

The troops will move into Lebanon to maintain a delicate truce which came into force on August 14, three days after the UN Security Council passed a resolution setting truce terms.

The truce has generally held but analysts have said it could be hard to maintain if UN forces did not deploy quickly.

The French commander of Unifil, Major-General Alain Pellegrini, said on Saturday he expected to reach the 5,000-mark on the ground within two weeks.

Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Al-Murr said a UN envoy had told him Israel would withdraw in two to three weeks.

A senior Israeli military officer, quoted by Israel’s YNET News website, gave roughly the same timetable.

“As it appears, next week (forces will) start moving south toward the line of position near the fence, and the week after that the forces will have left completely,” the unnamed officer said.

Some Israeli forces are still up to eight kilometres inside southern Lebanon, the officer said.

Meanwhile, Germany said on Sunday it had cancelled a planned special cabinet meeting due on Monday at which the government was expected to give the go-ahead to send troops to join the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.—Reuters