Lebanon
Ceasefire Under Threat
By Eric Silver in
Jerusalem
21 August 2006
The
Independent
A
high-ranking UN official has warned that the week-old truce in Lebanon
could soon collapse. Terje Roed-Larsen, Mr Annan's Middle East trouble-shooter,
who is visiting Beirut, said: "Things very easily can slide out
of control. This is why it is so important that all parties concerned
exercise utmost restraint in order to give the Lebanese Army the possibility
of deploying along all borders of Lebanon, and also to allow the international
community to provide troops."
The warning came after Israel
rejected charges by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general,
that it had violated last week's ceasefire by carrying out a commando
raid on a Hizbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli
Prime Minister, defended Saturday's raid during a telephone conversation
with Mr Annan. He said it was "intended to prevent the resupply
of new weapons and ammunition for Hizbollah" from Syria and Iran.
The 34-day war, which ended in stalemate on 14 August, killed 1,183
Lebanese and 157 Israelis.
Stéphane Dujarric,
a UN spokesman, said: "The secretary general is deeply concerned
about a violation by the Israeli side of the cessation of hostilities.
All such violations of Security Council Resolution 1701 endanger the
fragile calm that was reached after much negotiation."
Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign
Ministry spokesman, turned the charge of violating the ceasefire back
on Hizbollah and its allies. "According to Resolution 1701,"
he argued, "they are forbidden to rearm. Arms transfers from Syria
to Hizbollah are a grave violation of the resolution. That is the breach,
and Israel was responding to that."
He chastised the international
community for being too slow to deploy an international force to augment
the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
"Had those forces been there and the arms embargo enforced, there
would have been no reason for Israel to act," said Mr Regev.
France and other European
nations have been reluctant to commit substantial contingents to the
international force, which is supposed to total 15,000 troops, until
its mission and rules of engagement are clarified.
France, which has disappointed
the UN and its European allies by offering 200 troops immediately, called
yesterday for an EU meeting this week to co-ordinate "European
solidarity" for Lebanon. Mr Olmert repeated yesterday that Israel
was opposed to Muslim nations taking part if they did not have diplomatic
relations with Israel.
Amir Peretz, Israel's Defence
Minister, said during a cabinet meeting yesterday that Israel must not
allow the Lebanese Army, which began deploying south of the Litani river
last week, to get within 2km of the Israeli border before the international
force was in place. Otherwise, it would open the way for Hizbollah to
return, he argued. Mr Regev said: " Israel doesn't want the truce
to collapse. But the Security Council unanimously accepted our position
that the ceasefire could not be exploited by Hizbollah to rearm and
regroup."
Elias Murr, the Lebanese
Defence Minister, said Hizbollah was committed to the ceasefire. He
warned other, unnamed but presumably Palestinian, militias against rocket
attacks on Israel. Such attacks, he contended, would only give Israel
a pretext for renewing air strikes.
Israeli analysts believe
Hizbollah needs time out to restore its fighters, its fortifications
and its arsenal, all of which they say suffered more damage than the
Shia militia admits. During the cabinet meeting, Israel's top military
man, Lt-Gen Dan Halutz, conceded: "The feeling of the public is
that it was not a knockout blow."
An Israeli colonel was killed
and two other soldiers wounded during Saturday's raid on the village
of Boudai in the Bekaa valley. Israeli reports claim their mission was
not so much to destroy road links between Syria and Lebanon or new arms
shipments, but to gather evidence that supplies had resumed in violation
of the ceasefire. An army spokesman announced: "The goals of the
operation were achieved in full."
According to Lebanese reports,
three Hizbollah fighters were killed in the action.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited