The Israeli army said on Tuesday it could complete a pull-out from southern Lebanon within a few days as the United Nations said the number of peacekeepers in the devastated country had reached 5 000.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said such a level of peacekeepers on the ground in southern Lebanon should enable Israel to finish its withdrawal.
Israeli forces have been gradually pulling out from territory the army captured during the month-long war with the Hezbollah guerrilla group that ended on August 14.
Military chief Lieutenant General Dan Halutz told parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that all soldiers could return to Israel by the Jewish New Year, which begins at sunset on Friday.
”If all goes without a hitch, to the satisfaction of all sides, the working assumption is the IDF [army] will leave all the areas it controls by the Jewish New Year holiday,” a parliamentary spokesperson quoted Halutz as saying.
”If not, it would be delayed another week.”
Israel went to war after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a July 12 cross-border raid. Nearly 1 200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed in the conflict.
Halutz said meetings involving the Israeli army, the United Nations and Lebanon were taking place to coordinate the pull-out.
Senior officials have privately said Israel intended to complete the withdrawal by the Rosh Hashanah New Year holiday.
Earlier this week the army said it had withdrawn from more than 80% of territory conquered during the war, handing it over to UN peacekeepers under Unifil II, an expanded version of the original peacekeeper garrison in the area.
Military officials have refused to say how many Israeli troops were still in southern Lebanon. Israeli forces maintain control of a narrow strip of land inside the south.
Speaking from the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura, Unifil spokesperson Alexander Ivanko said the force in Lebanon now numbered 4 950.
”We’re there. We consider it to be 5 000,” he said.
Ivanko said some French troops were still heading south from Beirut, but Italian and Spanish forces have already joined about 2 000 Unifil troops in position since before the 34-day war. — Reuters