Last update - 00:00 01/10/2006
Little fanfare as last IDF troops quit Lebanon ahead of Yom Kippur
By News Agencies
Unlike previous Israel Defense Forces withdrawals, Sunday's exit from southern Lebanon felt scattered, spontaneous, small-scale. There was no fanfare other than a few soldiers who trudged past in the dark carrying national flags and relieved, dusty smiles.
IDF officials said the last soldiers returned to Israel around 2:30 A.M. (0030 GMT), ahead of the onset of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, at sundown.
"That's it, it's all over," said an infantry captain after locking the frontier fence outside the farming community of Zarit, formally ending a war that began after Hezbollah gunmen killed eight soldiers and abducted two in a July 12 cross-border raid.
Residents of northern Israel, many still rebuilding lives and livelihoods shattered by thousands of Hezbollah rocket salvoes during the 34-day conflict, woke up to new vistas of Lebanese troops and United Nations peace-keepers taking up positions across the border.
The yellow Hezbollah flags, a fixture since Israel quit southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year presence, were gone.
Witnesses said the IDF began moving tanks and armored carriers out of a few pockets near the border in southern Lebanon after midnight. Under the cover of darkness, the roar of IDF tanks and armored vehicles could be heard on the Lebanese side as they moved across the border.
An armored column creaked across the border at the Israeli border community of Moshav Avivim, leaving tread marks in the soil and sending a large cloud of dust into the air that was illuminated by the vehicle's headlights. Later, the last soldiers were seen boarding a bus at nearby Moshav Zarit.
"I feel much safer now, like I can finally go out more freely," said Eliran Cohen, a 13-year-old resident of Zarit.
Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin allowed that some Israelis may sense an anti-climax.
"We all agree that the issue itself is not over," Eisin said. "From the Israeli point of view, until the two [captured soldiers] are returned home, I don't expect a lot of fanfare."
Eisin said Israel was "now waiting for Lebanon to do its part under the truce."
In a rare rebuke, military chief Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz told a newspaper that "the result in Lebanon is mediocre." Despite the fact that Israel's troops have been quietly quitting former Hezbollah strongholds for weeks, with little incident, a cabinet minister predicted fresh confrontations.
"Whoever depends on gaining security from the Lebanese army's presence in the south is delusional," said Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense chief.
"I imagine we will be seeing all the sights of a Hezbollah [border] presence very soon," he told Army Radio.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has announced that his group had replenished its rocket arsenal. Ben-Eliezer said Israel should assassinate Nasrallah when the opportunity arises to do so without causing a large number of innocent casualties.
Several Ghanian soldiers riding a white UN armored personnel carrier photographed the site where IDF troops crossed the border, apparently verifying the withdrawal.
Two Lebanese plainclothes military intelligence officers also surveyed the area. One said the Lebanese army could begin deploying there later Sunday or Monday. A member of Amal, the Shiite group allied to Hezbollah, came by to take a look.
A group of seven Lebanese, including women and children planted a Lebanese flag atop an unfinished two-story house.
Village farmers were glad to see the troops gone. "May God never bring them back," said Mohammed Musseileh, 67. His 65-year-old brother Salem, also a farmer, added: "They are a treacherous enemy. They could be back anytime."
But Cohen, at least, was pleased with the lack of bombast evinced by the dozen-odd soldiers and three armored vehicles that passed through his village as he slumbered unaware.
"A big ceremony would have been too much," he said. "Why light everything up, and give Hezbollah another target already?"