Israeli troops fought ferocious battles with Hizbollah guerrillas across several areas of southern Lebanon on Sunday.
BEIRUT: Israeli troops battled Hizbollah guerrillas across southern Lebanon on Sunday on the eve of a UN-brokered truce, and the Israeli government said its forces would not withdraw until a stronger peacekeeping force arrived.
The United Nations said Israeli and Lebanese leaders had agreed that a truce would take effect at 0500 GMT on Monday. Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday his guerrillas would observe a truce but reserved the right to fight Israeli soldiers still on Lebanese soil. Lebanon rejected initial drafts of a UN resolution to end the fighting because they did not call for an immediate Israeli withdrawal. The resolution approved by the Security Council on Friday calls for a “full cessation of hostilities” and for Israel to withdraw its troops “at the earliest”.
As they withdraw, 15,000 Lebanese soldiers and an expanded international force of 15,000 foreign troops, likely to be led by France, will be deployed. Israel’s cabinet approved the Security Council resolution on Sunday but Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israeli troops would only pull out when the international force was deployed — which the UN says could take a week to 10 days.
Al Arabiya reported that seven Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in Lebanon on Sunday. Saturday was the deadliest day of the month-old war for the Israeli army, with 19 soldiers killed and five missing and feared dead after their helicopter was shot down by Hizbollah.
Israeli aircraft attacked targets in more than 50 villages and towns, killing at least six people in southern Lebanon and seven in the Bekaa valley. Several explosions shook Beirut and thick white smoke billowed over the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs. The attack destroyed 11 residential buildings. More than 153 rockets fired by Hizbollah hit northern Israel, killing one person and wounding 11 people.
Analysts cautioned that a truce may not hold, particularly with Israeli troops still in Lebanon. “I think this talk of a ceasefire going into effect tomorrow seems to be highly exaggerated and dubious,” said Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group.
“It seems that Israel’s strategy has been to establish positions as far north as possible to implement a fighting withdrawal, meaning that they will try to take on as much of Hizbollah as they can as they work their way south.”
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