Israeli troops are still occupying 10 areas of south Lebanon from which the last soldiers are due to withdraw by the end of this week — seven days later than first planned — a senior United Nations official said on Monday.
They remain in place in 10 zones stretching from Yarin in the eastern sector to Kfarkila in the centre, French Major Philippe Lebrat, military assistant to the commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), said.
On Tuesday, Unifil, Lebanese and Israeli officials are to hold a meeting due to finalise the Israeli pull-out from the border areas it has occupied since the month-long war with Hezbollah ended August 14 with a UN-brokered ceasefire.
Lebrat said the Israeli positions were located between 1km and 3km deep inside south Lebanon.
They are deployed in Kfarkila, Markaba, Blida, Marun al-Ras, Rmaish, Ramiyeh, Marwahin and Yarin, Lebrat said, but he did not give a figure for the number of Israeli troops left.
Their withdrawal ”should be completed by the end of the week”, he said.
Unifil commander Major General Alain Pelligrini has said Israeli forces should have withdrawn completely by the end of the month, after they delayed the pull-out due last Friday until after the weekend’s Jewish New Year holidays.
Since the end of hostilities last month, Unifil has been boosted to 5 000 troops, and the Lebanese army has been deploying in the border area for the first time in several decades.
”The two parties [Israel and Lebanon] have been delayed. But the withdrawal process has not been stopped. There are no obstructions,” Lebrat said.
The ill-equipped Lebanese army ”is not able” to take over territories controlled by Hezbollah, while Israel ”is taking its time to consolidate its defences as the Lebanese army has been incapable of guaranteeing security in the region for years,” he added.
Lebanese Defence Minister Michel Murr has said the army, absent from the region since the late 1960s after giving way first to Palestinian guerrillas, then Israeli occupation troops and finally Hezbollah, is in the market for anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
Israeli soldiers have since the truce been consolidating defensive positions and destroying Hezbollah arms depots and posts that had been held by the Shi’ite guerrillas.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers are clearly visible from the border, stirring protests from Beirut of violations of the ”Blue Line” frontier demarcated by the UN after the May 2000 end of two decades of Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.
UN monitors say some operations are taking place on Lebanon’s side while others are on Israeli land, with ”the route of the Blue Line not corresponding exactly with the barrier between the two countries”, explained Lebrat. — AFP
