LEBANON: It is unrealistic to think that Israeli troops can sit in southern Lebanon for 10 days or more, neither firing upon nor being fired at by Hizbullah, writes Lara Marlowe, in Beirut
Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire from 5am GMT today. But it doesn't take a degree in conflict studies to know the truce has about as much chance of survival as a Lebanese moped rider fleeing an Israeli drone.
Violence between the adoption of the resolution late on Friday night and this morning augurs badly for peace. At least 32 Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Saturday and yesterday, while Hizbullah killed 24 Israeli soldiers and an Israeli civilian.
None of Lebanon's three main demands were satisfied by the UN resolution. Instead of a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, it calls for a phased withdrawal "in parallel" to the deployment of the Lebanese army and Unifil.
A total of 15,000 Lebanese army soldiers and 15,000 Unifil peacekeepers are meant to replace up to 30,000 Israeli troops. But the deployment is expected to take between 10 days and several weeks - assuming the ceasefire holds. It is extremely unrealistic to think that large numbers of Israeli troops can sit in southern Lebanon for 10 days or more, neither firing upon nor being fired at by Hizbullah.
The war started because Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in the hope of obtaining the release of three Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. The preliminary remarks of the resolution merely say the Security Council "encourages" efforts to obtain the release of the Lebanese prisoners. At least seven more Lebanese have been nabbed by Israel during the conflict.
As for the Shebaa farms, 45 kilometres of agricultural land at the point where Lebanon, Israel and Syria meet, the UN secretary general is to present proposals "dealing with" Lebanon's demand for the return of the farms within a month. Israel and the US oppose even discussing Shebaa, because it would open the issue of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in 1967 and subsequently annexed.
In a pre-recorded television appearance on Saturday night, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, called the ceasefire resolution "unjust". But he nonetheless said Hizbullah would not oppose the Lebanese government's approval of the ceasefire.
Sheikh Nasrallah faces a dilemma. He appeared to commit Hizbullah to observing the ceasefire, but he has also sworn to keep fighting "as long as there are . . . Israeli soldiers occupying our land . . .
"We must not make a mistake, not in the resistance, the government or the people, and believe that the war has ended," Sheikh Nasrallah said on Saturday night.
"The war has not ended. There have been continued strikes and casualties . . . Today nothing has changed, and it appears tomorrow nothing will change."
All but one of Israel's demands - the return of the two soldiers captured on July 12th - are fulfilled by UNSC resolution 1701. It specifically requires "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon", imposes an embargo on the sale or supply of arms to Hizbullah and foresees "an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of Unifil" south of the Litani river.
Israel and the US originally demanded the creation of a "robust" international force under Nato auspices to protect Israel from Hizbullah. In view of the enormous disproportion in casualties and damage, a force to protect Lebanon from Israel might have been more appropriate. Lebanon rejected anything other than a UN force, so the Security Council decided to build on the vestiges of the "interim" force established in 1978. Unifil, which was limping along on a month-by-month basis, had its mandate extended for one year on Friday night. Its size is to be multiplied nearly eight-fold, from 2,000 to 15,000.
Until Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Unifil maintained checkpoints throughout the south, opened the boots of cars, seized militia weapons and handed them over to the Lebanese army.
"After the Israeli withdrawal, we stopped checking and abandoned checkpoints on the assumption that the Lebanese government was in control," explained Ryszard Morczynski, the political affairs officer for Unifil.
In an interview before Friday night's UN resolution, Mr Morczynski said "it would be better to cease the name Unifil and start from scratch".
Unifil is no longer the disciplined force it was when Irish troops held the most dangerous battalion area, from 1978 until 2001. I encountered troops from the Ghanaian battalion, who replaced the Irish, after Israel killed 28 people, the majority of them children, in a shelter at Qana on July 30th.
"Ghanbatt" arrived five hours after Lebanese rescue workers, smelling strongly of alcohol and asking, "Where are the wounded people we're supposed to evacuate?"
Mohamed Makke, the head of the Lebanese Red Cross in southern Lebanon, grew up in Tibnin, where the Irish had their headquarters before the Ghanaians. "In [ the Israeli offensives of] 1993 and 1996, the Irish brought us food and water and helped with the wounded," Mr Makke said. "The Ghanaians are not doing this. When the shops in Tibnin were blown open by the bombardments, they looted radios and televisions."
Forty-five Irish soldiers gave their lives so that the villages of southern Lebanon might live in peace. Now 23 years of painstaking work has been destroyed in 33 days. Among the worst-hit places this weekend was Rashaf, in the former "Irishbatt" area. Fifteen civilians were killed in an Israeli bombardment there on Saturday.
Another Israeli attack, on Friday night while diplomats were putting finishing touches to the UN ceasefire resolution, bodes ill for the transition between the Israeli Defence Forces, Unifil and the Lebanese army. The UN says it sought and was granted safe passage from the Israelis for a convoy of 3,000 Lebanese refugees and 350 Lebanese soldiers and policemen. Unifil escorted the convoy with armoured vehicles.
But Israel launched an air strike on the convoy, killing a Lebanese Red Cross worker and six other civilians and wounding 36 people, including members of the Lebanese security forces.
Israel said Hizbullah had used the same road in the past and claimed it thought Hizbullah might be smuggling weapons in the vehicles.
The ceasefire resolution places prime minister Fouad Siniora's government in an impossible predicament. Now that Hizbullah have become heroes in the eyes of millions of Lebanese and Arabs, Mr Siniora is supposed to order them to turn over their weapons - with virtually no military might at his disposal.
It is possible that Hizbullah may agree to remain north of the Litani, which would eliminate 80 per cent of its capacity to fire rockets on Israel. But demanding that a weak Lebanese government disarm the guerrillas who've stood up to the world's fourth largest army for 33 days is tantamount to imposing a civil war on this broken country.
Before the Israelis bombed the Qasmiyeh junction just north of Tyre last week, I witnessed a telling incident there.
Because the makeshift bridge could accommodate only one line of traffic, the Lebanese army blocked vehicles heading south towards Tyre so refugees could flee north.
After waiting for an hour in the sun with Israeli aircraft circling overhead, a colleague and I asked whether we might be allowed through. The Lebanese army soldier said no, but let a lone, bearded man in a battered Mercedes jump the queue. Why him and not us? We asked.
"Hizbullah," the soldier replied. And he said it with reverence.