Lebanon said on Saturday that it had been informed by United Nations peacekeepers that Israel was finally poised to complete its promised pull-out from the south, weeks after a UN Security Council truce resolution came into force on August 14.
A government spokesperson said the French commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), General Alain Pellegrini, had told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that Israel would pull out the last of its troops on Sunday.
”General Pellegrini contacted Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to inform him that the Israeli army has undertaken to complete its withdrawal from south Lebanon on Sunday,” the spokesperson said.
Unifil spokesperson Alexander Ivanko declined to confirm or deny the Israeli deadline.
But he had said on Thursday that he was hoping for Israel to complete its withdrawal by Sunday. ”We are expecting the Israelis to withdraw at the end of the month,” Ivanko said then.
In Tel Aviv, an Israeli military spokesperson confirmed that the army planned to withdraw from more positions in south Lebanon on Sunday but declined to say whether that would mark the completion of its pull-out.
”We are going to hand over control of several sectors to Unifil,” the spokesperson said.
But challenged whether the army planned to hand over control of all the sectors it still controls, she said: ”We can’t give out those sorts of operational details for security reasons.”
Israel’s privately owned Channel Two television had reported on Friday that the army would complete its pull-out by Sunday afternoon at the latest — before the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday.
The television said that army chiefs no longer saw any reason to keep the few hundred Israeli troops still deployed in Lebanon in place.
The Lebanese premier also spoke with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by telephone during the night to seek her assistance in getting Israel to pull out its remaining troops, the spokesperson added.
Siniora asked Rice, who begins a Middle East tour Monday, to ”put pressure on Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” the he said.
Lebanon has stepped up its protests about the slow pace of Israel’s withdrawal in recent days, warning that it is considering a formal protest to the Security Council. — AFP
