Lebanese come home to ruins

Lebanese come home to ruins
Cease-fire holds with isolated skirmishing.

Published Monday, August 14, 2006

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon (AP) - Lebanese civilians jammed onto roads to stream back to war-ravaged areas today after a U.N. truce halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that claimed more than 900 lives.

For the first time in a month, no rockets were fired into northern Israel, but few Israelis who fled the war were seen returning and Israel’s government advised them to stay away for now to see whether the cease-fire held.

Israeli soldiers reported killing six Hezbollah fighters in four skirmishes in southern Lebanon after the guns fell silent, highlighting the tensions that could unravel the peace plan.

Lebanese, Israeli and U.N. officers met on the border to discuss the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region, U.N. spokesman Milos Strugar said.

The meeting, the first involving a Lebanese army officer and a counterpart from Israel since Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, marked the first step in the process of military disengagement as demanded by a U.N. Security Council resolution.

The fighting persisted until the last minutes before the cease-fire took effect this morning, with Israel destroying an antenna for Hezbollah’s TV station and Hezbollah guerrillas clashing with Israeli troops near the southern city of Tyre and the border village of Kfar Kila.

Israeli warplanes struck a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon and a Palestinian refugee camp in the south, killing two people, and Israeli artillery pounded targets across the border through the night.

After the cease-fire took effect, lines of cars - some loaded with mattresses and luggage - snaked slowly around bomb craters and ruined bridges as residents began heading south to find out what is left of their homes and businesses.

Humanitarian groups also sent convoys of food, water and medical supplies into the south, but the clogged roads slowed the effort. U.N. officials said 24 U.N. trucks took more than five hours to reach the port of Tyre from Sidon, a trip that normally takes 45 minutes.

Israel had not lifted its threat to destroy any vehicle on most southern roads, a ban designed to keep arms from getting to Hezbollah fighters, but there were no signs it was being enforced.

Capt. Jacob Dallal, a military spokesman, said the Israeli army was urging Lebanese civilians to stay out of the south until Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers moved in to oversee the cease-fire.

"There are lots of Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. For their own safety, we advise" civilians "not to go," Dallal said.

But Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said at midafternoon that aside from the isolated skirmishes with Hezbollah, the cease-fire was holding.

The next step in the peace effort - sending in a peacekeeping mission - appeared days away. A Lebanese Cabinet minister told Europe-1 radio in France that Lebanese soldiers could move into the southern part of the country as early as Wednesday. In Paris, the French foreign ministry said a U.N. peacekeeping force should be mobilized "as quickly as possible."