Most Israeli troops withdraw from south Lebanon

ZARIT, Israel, Oct 1 (Reuters) Israel's army left all of south Lebanon except for one small border village today, as part of a handover to the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers under the truce that ended a war with Hizbollah fighters.

Crossing the frontier without fanfare before sunrise, Israeli troops padlocked the border gate at Zarit, close to where Iranian-backed Hizbollah fighters seized two soldiers on July 12, triggering the war.

''The IDF (Israeli army) have withdrawn their troops from the south, except from the area around the village of Ghajar,'' Major General Alain Pellegrini, commander of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said in a statement.

''I expect that they will leave this area in the course of the week, thus completing the withdrawal in line with (U.N.) Resolution 1701.'' Villagers in south Lebanon were delighted to see the troops go but there were few signs of celebration. Most are preoccupied with rebuilding their battered villages and shattered lives.

''They had the Israeli flag on my roof. When I arrived, I put up the Lebanese flag,'' Saleh Mohammad, 50, told Reuters in Marwaheen, which had been occupied by Israeli soldiers.

NO CLEAR VICTOR No clear victor emerged in 34 days of fighting, in which around 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died.

Hizbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into the Jewish state and Israel attacked the group's strongholds, bombing neighbourhoods in Beirut and villages in south Lebanon.

Israel sent 10,000 troops into south Lebanon before a truce took hold on August 14. Israel had wanted them all out before the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, at dusk today, but a few dozen remained.

Ghajar is an Arab village half inside Lebanon and half inside territory that Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

''Until there is an arrangement with UNIFIL and the Lebanese army regarding the situation in the village, troops will remain,'' an Israeli army spokesman said. Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the army, cautioned in a radio interview: ''If armed Hizbollah men move to the border, and try to re-establish their infrastructure, we will act to prevent it.'' In the Gaza Strip, seven people were killed and some 50 wounded in fierce gun battles between rival Palestinian security forces over unpaid wages and stalled unity talks with the Hamas-led government, medics and witnesses said.

Violence also erupted in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where backers of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group started a small fire inside the offices of the government.

POWER STRUGGLE Abbas is locked in an increasingly bitter power struggle with the government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh over efforts to form a unity coalition after Hamas trounced Fatah in elections in January.

The Lebanon war overshadowed an Israeli offensive in Gaza that was launched after a soldier was captured in a cross-border raid on June 25.

Halutz said Israel was considering intensifying strikes in Gaza by ''more continued and deeper ground action''.

Although the war in Lebanon had widespread support in Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's popularity ratings have tumbled because of the army's failure to crush Hizbollah.

Aiming unusual criticism at his own troops, Halutz told Israel Radio: ''The result in Lebanon is mediocre.'' A government-appointed commission has begun an investigation into the way Olmert, the cabinet and the military conducted the conflict.

In the darkness of the early morning, the headlights of Israeli 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.

U.N. Resolution 1701 authorises up to 15,000 UNIFIL troops to join a similar number of Lebanese army troops in the south, with a demilitarised zone south of the Litani River.

Hizbollah has rejected international calls to disarm.

Reuters