Israel began on Thursday to lift a blockade of Lebanon imposed when it went to war with Hezbollah guerrillas eight weeks ago, and a Lebanese airliner landed at Beirut’s patched-up airport to mark the moment.
The Middle East Airlines flight from Paris circled over Beirut to celebrate the demise of the air embargo after intense diplomacy led by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
A naval blockade would continue until an international force was deployed off the coast, Israel said.
”What starts at 6pm [local time] is a gradual process, it could take hours or a day [to complete],” said Miri Eisen, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The Beirut government has asked the UN to help patrol its territorial waters. Italian and French naval vessels were expected to begin monitoring the coast until a German-led naval contingent can take over.
Many countries have criticised the blockade, which Israel said was aimed at stopping Hezbollah from rearming after the 34-day war, but which Lebanon saw as collective punishment.
”The direct impact of the blockade on trade activity alone is estimated at around $45-million a day,” Finance Minister Jihad Azour said.
Ordinary Lebanese said they would be glad to see the end of Israel’s partial siege, but remained worried about the future.
”I am lost like many others,” said 25-year-old job-seeker Dania Atrouni. ”I hope this means the war is over in Lebanon … but I no longer have faith that nothing [bad] will happen.”
German security experts
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Beirut with four police and customs experts who will advise Lebanese authorities on airport security.
A German embassy spokesperson said it was not yet clear how the experts, to be joined by five more later, would relate to the UN peacekeeping force that is being expanded to uphold a shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Israel bombed Beirut airport and coastal radars and barred shipping from Lebanese ports after Hezbollah captured two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
Benny Regev, brother of one of the soldiers, Eldad Regev, said he feared the pair could be spirited to Iran. ”The abducted soldiers are currently in Lebanon. When the blockade is lifted, they could be taken to Tehran,” he told Israel Army Radio.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, who is close to Hezbollah, said the two soldiers could only be freed after negotiations for the release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel.
”There will be no discrimination between an Israeli hostage and a Lebanese hostage,” he said in Cairo.
Annan has said he will send a secret envoy to the region this week to work on the issue, one of several unfulfilled elements in the UN resolution that halted the conflict.
Another is the continued presence of Israeli troops in some pockets of south Lebanon they seized in the war and in the Shebaa Farms area, claimed by Lebanon, but viewed by the UN as Syrian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Under the UN Security Council resolution that halted the war on Auguat 14, up to 15 000 UN troops are to join a similar number of Lebanese soldiers deploying in the south to secure a border zone free of any Israeli or armed Hezbollah presence.
Annan, speaking in Madrid after an 11-day trip to the Middle East, said Israel should withdraw completely by mid-month and should not wait for all 15 000 UN troops to arrive.
”They have to leave for the others to be able to deploy,” he told a news conference with Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero regarding the force, in which 1 100 Spanish troops are set to take part.
The UN expects to have 5 000 troops in Lebanon by mid-September, backed by 16 000 Lebanese troops that are already moving into former Hezbollah strongholds, Annan said.
”In my judgement, an international force of 5 000, plus 16 000, is a credible force,” he added. — Reuters