Guns fall silent in Lebanon after UN-brokered truce

BEIRUT, Aug 14: Guns fell silent across southern Lebanon after a UN-brokered truce went into effect to end five weeks of fighting between Israel and Hizbollah that killed more than 1,250 people and wounded thousands.

Diplomats expect the truce to be fragile -- tens of thousands of Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, and they are not expected to withdraw fully until an international peacekeeping force arrives alongside Lebanese troops.

Security sources in south Lebanon said Israeli air strikes and artillery fire continued until just a few minutes before the truce took effect at 0500 GMT. Then there was silence.

''Suddenly, just after 8 am (0500 GMT) there was complete quiet in south Lebanon,'' one source said.

Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour told France 2 television the truce was holding. ''The situation is stable along the whole border and the zones of hostilities,'' he said.

The Israeli army said some Israeli soldiers began pulling out of southern Lebanon after the truce began. ''There are forces going out but there are enough forces that are staying,'' a military spokesman said.

There were no reports of any Hizbollah rockets being fired at Israel after the truce took hold.

''We are entering the stage of a ceasefire. The firing is over,'' a senior Israeli army officer said over the radio, giving orders to his soldiers. ''We hope the ceasefire will be kept. We are asking you to stay alert and prepare as Hizbollah could still break it.'' Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday that his guerrillas would observe the truce but reserved the right to resist Israeli forces still in Lebanon.

AIR STRIKES

An Israeli air strike on a van on the outskirts of the eastern city of Baalbek killed seven people minutes before the truce began, Lebanese medical sources said. Security sources said the van was transporting policemen, soldiers and civilians.

Air strikes on a village near Lebanon's eastern border with Syria killed at least nine civilians, medics said. A policeman died in another strike in the area and one person was killed in a raid on a Palestinian refugee camp, security sources said.

Around 1,100 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 156 Israelis, including 116 soldiers, have been killed in the war, which was triggered when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Under a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Friday to end the fighting, Israeli forces must start to withdraw as around 15,000 foreign peacekeeping troops and 15,000 Lebanese soldiers arrive in the south. Hizbollah must also pull its fighters out of southern Lebanon.

Hizbollah has said it accepts the UN resolution although it regards some aspects of it as unjust. The group has said it will cooperate with the peacekeeping force and Lebanese troops that deploy in the south, but has not said whether it will pull out its forces from the area south of the Litani river.

Israeli officials said the Jewish state believed it would be entitled under the UN resolution to use force to prevent Hizbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon even after the truce took effect.

Senior Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir said his country would not violate the truce. ''If Hizbollah continues to fire rockets or shoots at our soldiers then we will have to respond.

There will not be a violation from our side,'' he said.

INTERNATIONAL FORCE

Western diplomats and UN officials said they feared Israel's broad definition of ''defensive'' actions could lead to a resurgence in large-scale fighting and prevent the swift deployment of the UN troops, likely to be led by France.

The United Nations has said it could be around a week before the international force can be deployed.

Besides the French contribution, Italy says it is ready to send up to 3,000 troops, and Portugal, Finland and Spain are considering deployments. Diplomats say Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Indonesia may also contribute.

The Israeli army said around 530 Hizbollah guerrillas had been killed during the war. Hizbollah has acknowledged only a few score dead.

The truce has not resolved many key issues including the fate of the two captured Israeli soldiers, the issue of whether Hizbollah will disarm and the status of the Shebaa Farms area which is claimed by Lebanon but occupied by Israel.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported the Israeli government was willing to discuss a possible release of Lebanese prisoners in exchange for the freeing of the two captured soldiers.

The question of how to deal with Hizbollah could once again fracture Lebanon along sectarian lines. A Lebanese cabinet meeting scheduled for yesterday was postponed because of divisions over whether to discuss disarming Hizbollah.

The war in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to free another captured soldier. More than 170 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, have been killed in the military campaign in Gaza.

An Israeli air strike today killed one Palestinian and wounded two in the Gaza Strip shortly after at least one rocket was fired into Israel from the area, doctors said.

Reuters