Israel delays withdrawal from Lebanon

Israel is unlikely to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by the weekend, Israel's army chief said Wednesday, backing away from earlier predictions. "We very much hoped it would happen by Friday, but in the dialogue we have been holding with the UN and the Lebanese Army there are a few issues to be wrapped up," Lieutenant General Dan Halutz told Israel Radio Wednesday.

"I hope it will take place in the next few days, but it looks likely to be after the holiday," he said, referring to the Jewish New Year, which begins Friday night.

Halutz said earlier this week that Israeli forces would be able to quit Lebanon by Friday.

That timetable was confirmed earlier Wednesday by Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz. "This is our intent, we definitely want to complete it," Peretz said during a tour of southern Israel. "Let's hope there are no hitches and delays in the coordination with the Lebanese Army and the international forces."

The United Nations secretary general's representative in Lebanon also said early Wednesday that the remaining Israeli troops would withdraw from Lebanon by the weekend.

"The UN is looking forward to achieving a full Israeli withdrawal and ensuring a successful cooperation between the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL," Geir Pedersen said after meeting with Defense Minister Elias Murr.

Halutz did not specify what was holding up the withdrawal.

Earlier on Wednesday, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told AFP that the number of its peacekeepers in South Lebanon had more than doubled to 5,000 - a key condition that Israel has demanded before completely exiting its northern neighbor.

"We have reached the 5,000 troops. The first phase of the UNIFIL deployment is now completed," said Alexander Ivanko in the Mediterranean coastal town of Naqoura on the border with Israel.

The prewar number of about 2,000 UNIFIL troops, Ivanko said, had been boosted by three new battalions from France, Italy and Spain, although it would still take weeks for all the new troops to be deployed in the South.

Troops from other countries, notably Indonesia, will follow in October and November, he said, adding that the operation posed a "logistical nightmare".

In Berlin, German lawmakers were voting by a large majority to send warships to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon with a mandate to stop arms shipments to Hizbullah.

"There is perhaps no other area of the world where Germany's unique responsibility, the unique responsibility of every German government to heed the lessons of our past is so clear than it is here," Merkel said.

Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are also sending warships to join the expanded UN force.

The Swedish military said Wednesday that a Swedish coastal patrol vessel has left for the Mediterranean.

"The corvette HMS Gaevle set sail late on Tuesday as part of its transfer to the Mediterranean," the military said in a statement. No date has been set yet for the ship's arrival off the Lebanese coast.

To defuse opposition at home, Merkel has ruled out sending combat troops in an attempt to ensure that German soldiers will not get caught up in a confrontation with Israeli forces.

Malaysia also got the go-ahead to send troops to Lebanon despite initial objections from Israel, the Malaysian state news agency said Wednesday.

Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the UN had invited Malaysia to join the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, although it will send less than the 1,000 troops originally offered.

"The UN has approved the deployment of 360 Malaysian peacekeepers in Lebanon," Abdullah was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency in New York Tuesday.

In South Lebanon, 17 Israeli soldiers interrogated three Lebanese civilians fishing in the Wazzani River.

The National News Agency reported that Maher Ibrahim Sayyed, Moussa Suleiman al-Hadi and Ali Mohammad Qassem Khalil were questioned "for some time" before the Israelis asked them to leave the land they claimed belonged to the Israeli Army.

In other developments, an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson said Wednesday an ICRC team in Tel Aviv had visited four Lebanese detainees.

"The ICRC has conveyed oral messages to the detainees' families," Hisham Hassan said but refused to reveal any names.

UN peacekeeping boss wants Lebanon to serve as a model

Agence France Presse(AFP)
Saturday, September 16, 2006

UNITED NATIONS: With some 89,000 personnel deployed around the world, the United Nations is struggling to fulfill its far-flung peacekeeping missions and counting on increased contributions of troops from developed countries. The current beefing up of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon offers a model of what UN peacekeeping should be lke, according to Jean-Marie Guehenno, the French head of UN peacekeeping operations (DPKO).

"We are on track to deploy a very significant force there because a whole category of countries that used to stay away from peacekeeping is re-engaging," Guehenno said. "It's an event of historical importance."


European countries are providing the backbone of a sharply expanded UN force in Southern Lebanon expected to reach up to 15,000 troops.

"We have a deployment on a time frame - a couple of weeks after a conflict - that is unprecedented in recent years," he said. "That makes the point that if the political will is there, it is possible."

He expressed the hope that the Lebanese operation would impress upon rich countries the need to bolster overstretched UN peacekeepers.

The UN force helping Lebanon secure its borders in line with the UN resolution that ended the 34-day war with Israel includes 2,450 Italian troops, 2,000 from France and 1,100 from Spain.

It is also to include smaller troop contingents or naval units from Bangladesh, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Sweden and Turkey.

Another major challenge has been shaping up in Sudan, where the UN wants an existing 12,273-strong force beefed up to 17,300 troops and 3,300 civilian police to take over peacekeeping from a cash-strapped African Union force.

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IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon

Haaretz
By Meron Rappaport

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.

MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers.

The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.

The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would "flood" the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.

When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.

'Excessive injury and unnecessary suffering'

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.


The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.


IDF: No violation of international law

In response, the IDF Spokesman's Office stated that "International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.

"For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.


"The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel."


The Defense Minister's office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

Blair runs into protests, snubs on Lebanon visit

Reuters

September 10, 2006

BEIRUT - About 2,000 Lebanese protested against British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Beirut on Monday, accusing him of backing Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah, and several cabinet ministers refused to meet him.

"He was a party in the war," Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh, of the Shi'ite Muslim Amal movement, told Reuters. "He supported the U.S. position and did not call for a ceasefire...It is natural that we do not receive him."

Blair angered many Lebanese by his refusal to call for an early ceasefire in the conflict which killed nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Two Hizbollah ministers also declined to attend Blair's talks with the Lebanese government, even though a spokesman for Blair said the British leader had been ready to meet them.

Blair had also been due to meet Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is the leader of Amal and a Hizbollah ally, but an aide to Berri said he had left on a private visit abroad.

Troops, riot police and barbed-wire barriers kept the demonstrators well away from the government building in downtown Beirut where Blair met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.


"I'm standing here because Blair is the killer of Lebanese children," said Ibad Malak, a 19-year-old student.

Blair, the first British prime minister to visit Lebanon, was discussing with Siniora a U.N. truce in effect since August 14 and Britain's contribution to postwar reconstruction.

His spokesman said Britain had provided 22.3 million pounds ($41.6 million) in humanitarian aid and was giving another 20 million pounds to support U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon.

The British destroyer HMS York is also involved in efforts to patrol Lebanon's coast to enforce a U.N. arms embargo.

Blair wanted to show his support for Siniora and to discuss the full implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that halted the fighting on August 14, his spokesman said.

ANTI-BLAIR PROTESTS

Some protesters held placards reading "Thank you Blair for delivering the intelligent bombs" -- referring to U.S. flights carrying bombs for Israel that refueled in Scotland during the war.

"Blair you killer, go to hell," read another placard.Security sources said about 2,000 people had turned out for the protests, organized by Hizbollah and its pro-Syrian allies.Top Shi'ite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said on Sunday Blair was not welcome because of his support for Israel and Washington.

He also criticized Blair for allowing U.S. arms to be shipped via Britain to Israel for use against Lebanon.Fadlallah said Blair should have been told to stay away so he would "know we are not so naive as to welcome him when he has contributed to killing us and slaughtering our children."

Blair began his Middle East tour in Israel on Saturday on a peace drive that analysts say is aimed partly at countering criticism of his pro-U.S. stance during the Lebanon war and partly at bolstering his political legacy.

Last week Blair was forced to concede he will leave office within a year to quell a rebellion in his Labour Party.Blair said on Sunday the international community should deal with a unity Palestinian government if it breaks with the policies of the boycotted Hamas-led administration.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said on Monday he hoped an announcement could be made soon on forming such a government after "positive" talks with President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians hope creation of a unity coalition will lead to the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on the six-month-old Hamas government for refusing to recognize Israel.

Poisonous clouds of pollution spread after Israel air strike

Lebanese minister says damage was deliberate, causing 'an even bigger disaster than the war itself'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 September 2006

The Indepenedent

More people will die as a result of pollution unleashed by Israel's bombing of the Lebanon than perished in the month-long war itself, the Lebanese government believes.

Yacoub Sarraf, its Environment Minister, speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, said last week that a highly poisonous cloud spread over a third of the country - an area that is home to half its people - from a fire in a bombed fuel tank that burned for 12 days.

The same bombing released about four million gallons of oil into the sea, in the largest ever spill in the eastern Mediterranean. He insists that the environmental damage was "deliberately" caused. Experts say that, if this was so, it would constitute a war crime, in breach of both the Geneva Convention and the statute of the International Criminal Court. Israel retorts that any such suggestion is "very ridiculous".

The damage began on 13 July, when Israeli rockets hit a fuel storage tank at the Jiyyeh power station 18 miles south of Beirut. The government managed to repair the damage and prevent an oil spill. But two days later, he continued, the rockets returned, not merely hitting the same tank again - just 25 metres from the sea - but fatally damaging its protective burm, a concrete and earth barrier designed to stop any oil spilling from the tank from reaching the Mediterranean.

"It was definitely deliberate.," he said. "They did not hit the power station, just the fuel storage, and this was the tank that was closest to the sea."

He expects the greatest "catastrophe" from the toxic cloud that was blown by the prevailing wind over Beirut and one-third of the country. Tests have shown, he says, that it contains high levels of poisonous lead and mercury, and highly dangerous PCBs.

"Not only have we been breathing this for a month, but all the agricultural produce has been subjected to it. Even worse, all these poisons will come down with the rain, and some will seep through the soil and give us a polluted water table.

"Then in a couple of years every single citizen in Lebanon will definitely be subjected to poisonous matter in his drinking water." He expected more Lebanese to die from the pollution than the 1,300, overwhelmingly civilians, killed in the war. He added that studies have shown there would be decreased fertility and higher rates of cancer. "This is a bigger disaster even than the war itself," Mr Sarraf said.

A spokesman for the Israeli government said: "We deny the minister's accusations. They seem to be very ridiculous.

"We never deliberately targeted any civilian capacity or place, we only targeted places or facilities relevant to Hizbollah."

Government submits complaint on Israeli blockade to Security Council

BEIRUT: Lebanon has filed an official complaint with the UN Security Council in protest against Israel's continued blockade of the country, sending copies of a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the members of the council. The move came as Egypt summoned Israel's ambassador in Cairo on Tuesday to demand that the Jewish state lift its blockade of Lebanon, saying it was hindering aid and would feed extremism, according to a Foreign Ministry official.

Israel has kept an air and sea embargo on Lebanon since its 34-day bombardment of the country ended on August 14.


Israel says the blockade is aimed at preventing weapons from reaching Hizbullah.

"The continuation of this siege would feed extremist currents," 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.

The letter, agreed upon at a Cabinet session Monday night, accused Israel of violating UN Resolution 1701, which calls for "the reopening of harbors and airports under the authority of the Government of Lebanon."

The letter said that Lebanon had deployed around 8,500 soldiers along its eastern and northern borders to strengthen security, adding that Israel is violating international law by appointing itself "a referee" with regard to the implementation of Resolution 1701.


The letter urged Annan "to deploy all efforts to put an end to the blockade and its consequences for the Lebanese."

The head of the Arab Parliament, Mohammad Jassem al-Saqr, called on Tuesday for Arab governments to break the Israeli blockade on Lebanon by sending their planes and ships to the country without the consent of Israel.

"Israel cannot stop any attempt to break the blockade," Saqr said. "If an airplane arrives here without the consent of Israel, Israel would not be able to hit it."

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