Israel completes last phase of Lebanon withdrawal

Zarit (Israel), Oct 1: Israel's army pulled out of south Lebanon early today to complete a handover to the Lebanese army and international peacekeepers under a UN resolution to end a bloody war with Hizbollah guerrillas.

The last forces to leave padlocked the border gate at Zarit, close to where Iranian-supported Hizbollah fighters seized two soldiers on July 12 and triggered the war with US ally Israel that sent shockwaves through the Middle East.

Israel sent 10,000 troops into south Lebanon before a truce took hold on August 14. Only a few hundred remained by the weekend and Israel wanted them out before Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, which starts at dusk today.

The headlights of tanks lit up clouds of dust as they crossed back into Israel past coils of barbed wire. Returning soldiers whipped out mobile phones to call home.

''The responsibility for Lebanon right now is in the hands of the Lebanese government and, of course, the UN so every act of Hizbollah is the responsibility of Lebanon,'' said Israeli army spokesman Major Zvika Golan before the last soldiers had left.

Around 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed in the fighting -- the worst since Israel's 1982 invasion.

Today's withdrawal was much more low key than a pullout in 2000 after 22 years of occupation.

Although the war had widespread support in Israel, many Israelis believe it was badly handled by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government. Hizbollah hailed as a victory the fact it survived the onslaught of the Middle East's mightiest army.

Hizbollah Keeps Guns

UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war, authorises up to 15,000 troops from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to join a similar number of Lebanese army troops in the south, with a demilitarised zone south of the Litani River.

But Hizbollah has rejected international calls for it to disarm.

Israeli television said that despite the ground pullout, Israel would ''retain the right'' to overfly Lebanese territory and patrol Lebanon's coast, arguing that the UN resolutions were not being fully observed by Hizbollah.

That could be a likely cause for future friction.

While Israel sees the deployment of Lebanese troops and a beefed up UN force to southern Lebanon as a success, it did not achieve its aims of recovering the captured soldiers or preventing Hizbollah from firing barrages of rockets.

Olmert's popularity has tumbled.

Meanwhile, Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's prestige at home and in the Arab world was boosted massively, though the war also exposed Lebanon's internal fault lines.

An Israeli cabinet minister said on Saturday Israel should assassinate Nasrallah if an opportunity arose to do so without causing a large number of bystander casualties.

''Nasrallah's life is forfeit,'' Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Army Radio. ''He's bad for the Jews, he's bad for the Arabs, he's bad for the Christians. We should wait for the right opportunity and not leave him alive.'' Nasrallah's predecessor, Sayyed Abbas Musawi, was assassinated in a 1992 Israeli helicopter air strike that also killed his wife and child.

Reuters