Last update - 00:00 05/09/2006
Turkish parliament approves troop deployment to Lebanon
By News Agencies
Turkey's parliament on Tuesday approved, as expected, a goverment request to send hundreds of Turkish troops to Lebanon to join a UN peacekeeping mission.
Deputies voted by 340 to 192 in favour of the motion, which needed a simple majority of those attending the extraordinary session to be passed.
There is opposition to the deployment among many in Muslim Turkey who fear the force will mainly serve Israeli and U.S. interests and that soldiers may have to fire at fellow Muslims.
Italy's Defense Minister Arturo Parisi said on Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces troops should be able to leave south Lebanon within 10 days when 5,000 UN peacekeepers are expected to be in place.
"We believe that this condition can be satisfied within 10 days," Parisi told reporters.
"I'm referring to comments by the Israeli government, that specify [5,000 troops] as the condition for the withdrawal from south Lebanon."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday has called on Israel to
complete its pullout once 5,000 UN troops are on the ground. Major-General Alain Pellegrini, commander of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force, said at the weekend it could take two weeks to reach that number from the 3,100 already in the south.
Italy has commited up to 3,000 troops - more than any other country -- to secure the truce between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Parisi described the mission as a test of the UN's legitimacy in world peacekeeping.
Annan also said Tuesday was hoping for "positive" news within 48 hours on whether Israel would lift its blockade. An Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel will lift the blockade once the Lebanese army, helped by international forces, can enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah.
Egypt summons Israel's ambassador over blockade
Egypt summoned Israel's ambassador in Cairo on Tuesday to demand Israel lift its blockade on Lebanon, saying it was hindering aid and would feed extremism, a foreign ministry official said.
Israel has kept an air and sea embargo on Lebanon since its 34-day war with Hezbollah ended on August 14. Israel says the blockade is aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rearming.
"The continuation of this siege would feed extremist currents," Egypt's Assistant Foreign Minister for Arab affairs Hany Khalaf told journalists.
Khalaf said the blockade was hindering aid to Lebanon and was a violation "in letter and spirit" of the UN-brokered truce that helped end the war.
IDF troops withdraw from five south Lebanon towns
Israel Defense Forces troops have withdrawn from five villages in southern Lebanon and UN troops have set up new checkpoints as Lebanese
troops rolled into the area, witnesses and the UN peacekeeping mission said Tuesday.
A UNIFIL statement said the villages the troops withdrew from included Beit Lif, al-Qawzah, Dibel, Ein Ibel, Mhaibeb, all located in the southeast corner of Lebanon near the larger town of Bint Jbail.
"The UNIFIL Ghanaian Battalion established seven new checkpoints and carried out intensive patrolling in the area, confirming that IDF were no longer present there," UNFIL said in a statement.
The IDF spokesman's office confirmed that troops had pulled out of the towns and surrounding areas, and said the withdrawal would continue in
stages in the coming days.
Afterward, around 250 Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas, including al-Qawzah, Dibel, Ein Ibel, witnesses and Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported.
Also Tuesday, 120 Lebanese soldiers who had been manning checkpoints on the outskirts of Bint Jbail moved into the devastated town's center for the first time, traveling aboard military vehicles, armored personnel carriers, trucks and jeeps. Bint Jbail was the scene of fierce ground fighting between IDF forces and Hezbollah guerrillas and large parts of the town are in ruins.
Lebanese troops also deployed in the nearby villages of Ainata and Aitaroun. Witnesses said the troops were greeted with dancing as women showered them with rice and some men slaughtered sheep.
A beefed-up UN force that is to be expanded from 2,000 to 15,000 troops is deploying throughout the south with an equal number of Lebanese soldiers as IDF troops withdraw.
The war began July 12 when Hezbollah fighters seized two IDF soldiers and killed three others, sparking an Israeli invasion and a month of fighting.
Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon known as
UNIFIL, declined to say how much territory in Lebanon is still controlled by Israeli forces.
Small pockets of IDF soldiers and tanks, some flying the Israeli flag, are scattered across the south, but they largely keep out sight and occupy villas on the outskirts of villages.
UN warns south Lebanese against rushing home
The United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday warned southern Lebanese against rushing home to areas without water and electricity and where unexploded Israeli ordnance remained a danger.
Many of those who had returned following last month's ceasefire between Israeli and Hezbollah forces would end up spending the winter in other villages, said Ron Redmond, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"A substantial number of the Lebanese who rushed home immediately after the ceasefire found they could not use their houses and remain displaced," he said.
"The UNHCR is not advising further returns to this most southerly area of Lebanon," he added.
UNHCR estimates there are thousands of Lebanese who have not been able to return to their homes after the month-long war, which ended in a August 14 ceasefire.
According to the charity Caritas, in Beirut alone there are 35,000 people who have not been able to go home and have lost their source of income, the agency added.