Fragile truce takes hold in Lebanon

Israel widened its offensive on southern Lebanon on Aug. 11, despite a UN Security Council cease-fire resolution passed that day. Helicopters lifted hundreds of Israeli troops into the south even though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had backed the UN vote. That day, an Israeli aircraft fired on a convoy of more than 600 civilian vehicles leaving the Israeli-occupied town of Marjayoun in southeast Lebanon. A Lebanese Red Cross worker and seven civilians were killed while 36 were wounded. When asked why Israel had gone ahead with a massive ground push after a cease-fire resolution had already been adopted by the Security Council, foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev replied that Israel wanted to weaken Hezbollah as much as possible before handing the area over to an international force. President Bush welcomed the resolution, saying Hezbollah and its sponsors Iran and Syria had brought an "unwanted" war to the region. Throughout the weekend, Israeli forces proceeded to ratchet up the fighting across southern Lebanon. The day after the resolution passed in the UN, the Lebanese government unanimously approved the cease-fire plan. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group would cooperate. "Once there is an agreement to stop the hostilities or the military operations, the resistance will abide by it," Nasrallah said, while adding that Hezbollah had the right to resist any Israeli soldiers who remained on Lebanese soil. By the day's end, 30,000 Israeli soldiers had crossed the border. Israeli missile strikes continued with the most lethal attack on the southern Lebanon village of Rachaf, where 15 died, while Israeli bombs hit power plants in Sidon and Tyre. In northern Lebanon, Israeli aircraft bombed the road to the Arida border post, the last open official crossing point into Syria for humanitarian convoys and civilians fleeing the country. Witnesses said the attack had left the main road impassable. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora condemned Israel's escalation of operations, saying that by "giving free rein to its war machine," it had raised doubts among some Lebanese politicians about the merits of abiding by the Security Council's orders. On Aug. 13, Israeli warplanes pursued their bombing campaign without letup. At least 23 bombs hit a Beirut suburb in the space of two minutes, almost immediately after the Israeli cabinet officially endorsed the UN's truce plan. About 15 thundering explosions jarred the city in the early afternoon. The explosives leveled an area of several hundred square yards in a residential part of the Dahiya suburbs. The bombs demolished 11 nine-storey residential buildings in the Rweis district of southern Beirut. Witnesses reported seeing children playing in the streets in front of the buildings moments before they were hit. People at the scene described seeing rescue workers pull seven bodies from the rubble, three of them children. The bombs hit at least three gas stations, one near the Najam hospital, where windows shattered in wards filled with patients. Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israeli warplanes destroyed a bridge near the northern town of Halba, wounding two people. Other raids hit the area of Ali Nahri in the eastern Beka'a Valley near the border with Syria. Air strikes on the village of Brital in eastern Lebanon also killed at least seven and wounded 35, medics said. Warplanes also fired missiles into gas stations in the southern port city of Tyre. Earlier, at least five people died–a woman, her three children and a housemaid–in a strike which destroyed a building at Bourj el-Chemali, a mile east of the city. In the Beka'a valley, security officials reported two people killed and four wounded in an air strike north of Baalbek. Hours before the truce was officially due to take effect on Aug. 14, Israeli forces pressed on with their offensive, battling with Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had ordered the Israeli army to begin abiding by the cease-fire as of 2am. But Israeli air strikes went on well after that time, targeting areas in eastern Lebanon and near Sidon. On Aug. 15, at least six Lebanese, described by Israeli forces as Hezbollah guerrillas, were killed in four separate incidents and at least 10 Hezbollah rockets were fired across southern Lebanon. Outside intervention poised to start The Lebanese Cabinet agreed on Aug. 16 to deploy the Lebanese army south of the Litani River starting the next day, a key demand of the cease-fire aimed to halt 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. But it left unclear the issue of disarming the Islamic militant group. The decision to start deploying the Lebanese army came as top foreign diplomats planned the dispatch of a 15,000-strong international force that eventually is to join the troops in patrolling the region between the Israeli border and the river, 18 miles to the north. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France is willing to lead the enlarged UN force in Lebanon until at least February. But he expressed concern that the force's mandate was "fuzzy" and said the peacekeepers need to have sufficient resources and a clear mission. The Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers are planned to slowly take over territory from withdrawing Israeli forces. Hezbollah's top official in south Lebanon said the group welcomed the Lebanese army's deployment, but hinted that the Shiite militants would not disarm in the region or withdraw but rather melt into the local population and hide their weapons. Meanwhile, Nasrallah claimed a "strategic, historic victory" for withstandstanding Israel's onslaught and promised to oppose any disarmament plans. Hezbollah also promised that it would help tens of thousands of people reconstruct homes that were damaged by Israeli air strikes and pay a year's rent in compensation to those whose houses had been destroyed. Foreign diplomats worked to assemble the international force that will augment the current 2,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has been in the area for more than two decades. Visiting Beirut on Aug. 16, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urged Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon, saying it was unnecessary because the UN-imposed cease-fire was holding. "The blockade imposed on the airport and Lebanese ports should be lifted. We ask Israeli authorities to lift the land and sea siege on Lebanon," Douste-Blazy said. The blockade was instituted shortly after fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel bombed the Beirut international airport, blocked seaports and began destroying road links to Syria. The UN hopes 3,500 international troops can reinforce the UN contingent already on the ground within 10 to 15 days to help consolidate the cease-fire and create conditions for Israeli forces to head home, Assistant UN Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said. Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz said that Israeli soldiers would remain in southern Lebanon for months, if necessary. Halutz warned that the withdrawal would stop altogether if the Lebanese army was not deployed to control the border region within days. The announcement dented hopes of a quick Israeli withdrawal, increasing the risk that tensions between the warring sides could break the cease-fire if both settled into a long standoff. Israeli officials also said they believed their military would be entitled under the UN resolution to use force to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon after the truce took effect. For its part, Hezbollah has said it is prepared to attack any Israeli troops on Lebanese soil despite the cease-fire. Initial hopes of an accelerated withdrawal were also tempered by UNIFIL reports that despite some Israeli troop withdrawals, there had been no significant changes in the position and strength of Israeli forces. A devastating aftermath At least 842 people were killed in Lebanon during the 34-day campaign, most of them civilians. Israel suffered 157 dead–including 118 soldiers. Lebanese refugees have begun flooding back to their homes in the war-ravaged south at a rate of 6,000 per hour, according to UNICEF, in defiance of renewed Israeli threats. Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Tyre warning refugees not to return home until the joint Lebanese-international force starts to deploy. The intensity of the destruction was starkly evident in Sidiqine, a bombed village near the massacre site in Qana. Amar Balhas arrived at lunchtime with his wife and eight children to find a ruin where his house once stood. An unexploded shell lay on the broken concrete carpeting his front yard. A pile of embers marked the remains of his incinerated tobacco harvest. "All this was green before. Hard to believe that now," Balhas said. Israel had bombed his house twice before, in 1996 and 1999. Yet he would not hesitate to begin again. "As we built before we will build again," he said defiantly, an arm around his 10-year-old son. "Israel wants us to crumble like the Palestinians did. But we won't give in." Others had more limited reserves of stoicism. Next door, 75-year-old Fatme Azzam leaned through a bomb-blasted doorway and wept. "I lost 35 people from my family in the first Qana massacre," she said, rubbing her worry-lined face. "Now this. Down the street, Ali Bakri wrenched open the broken doors of his small supermarket, clearing the fridges of food that had gone rotten over the past month. About 80 percent of the village had been leveled, he estimated, and 60 people had died. "The destruction is massive. It's as if a tsunami or a second Hiroshima has hit."