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Israeli soldiers walk a dirt road returning from southern Lebanon into northern Israel Monday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 14, 2006 |
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Israeli soldiers in Lebanon killed six Hezbollah fighters in three separate skirmishes in Lebanon on Monday after the U.N.-imposed cease-fire came into force, army officials said.
Israeli troops opened fire Monday on a group of armed Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, hitting one man, in a clash that showed the fragility of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that came into force just a few hours earlier.
The army said the militants were approaching an Israeli position near the village of Hadatha "in a threatening way," and were just a few yards away when the soldiers opened fire "in self-defense." The soldiers did not know if the man who was hit was dead or wounded.
The incident happened about three hours after the 8 a.m. truce came into force, the army said. The militants didn't open fire first, it added.
The cease-fire agreement adopted Friday called on Israel to cease all offensive military operations, but Israel made it clear it reserved the right to protect its soldiers.
No other incidents in Lebanon or of rocket fire on northern Israel were reported in the first hour after the truce. But Israelis who deserted their rocket-battered homes remained wary of returning.
Two further clashes occurred later in the day, with one guerrilla killed in each, the officials said.
Some of the exhausted Israeli forces began pulling out of southern Lebanon, but were being replaced by fresh troops. An army official said "there is no withdrawal" and that Israeli soldiers would maintain positions seized in Lebanon until they were replaced by the Lebanese army and a beefed-up United Nations force.
The army warned that restrictions on Lebanese traffic in south of the Litani River remain in place "for now," even though thousands of Lebanese refugees were jamming bombed-out roads leading toward the south. Imposing the restrictions last week, Israel said it would consider any movement on the roads to be a legitimate Hezbollah target.
The military also said it was maintaining its air and sea blockade of Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from rearming.
Israel claimed significant gains in the 34-day conflict, with the loosening of Hezbollah's unchallenged grip on southern Lebanon and the hoped-for restoration of Beirut's sovereignty.
"You've destroyed the state within a state, this Iranian satellite. You've destroyed their ability to be on the border, to shoot at our soldiers, to kidnap them, to lob mortar shells and short-range rockets across the border," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, in the government's first comments after the truce.
"That's why we will be very very strict in abiding by all our commitments," he said. "The onus will be on the Lebanese side."
However, the Israeli government faced growing criticism at home for the war's outcome, which failed to meet Israel's opening goals of destroying Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due to address the Israeli parliament in the afternoon, in his first lengthy policy statement in weeks. He will be followed by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, in what is likely to be the opening salvo in a lengthy and heated political debate about the conduct of the war.
Olmert's critics already have called for a commission of inquiry into the decision-making during the war. One of the main criticisms inside Israel is that the government was too slow to order a massive ground invasion that could have pushed Hezbollah further away from the border.
Rather than controlling all territory south of the Litani, military officials said in most places the army was about 6 miles from the river. The Litani runs roughly 18 miles from the border, except in the east near the Israeli panhandle.
Authorities warned residents of northern Israeli towns and villages to remain vigilant against renewed rocket attacks, and advised those who fled for safety out of rocket range not to rush home.
Northern Israel remained virtually empty of civilian traffic. The streets of Haifa, Israel's third-largest town, which has been peppered by Hezbollah missiles, were quieter than normal.
"Today, there are more people and more traffic, but you can tell that people are hesitating by the look on their faces and the way they walk," said Shmuel Gulden, 59, a Haifa bookstore owner.
Small numbers of people began visiting beaches that had been all but deserted during the fighting.
"It's good that they reached a cease-fire because at least civilians on both sides are going to stop being killed, but I don't think it will last," said Irena Zaisburg, 40, who came with her three children, including a 7-month-old baby.
More than half the 22,000 residents of the border town of Kiryat Shemona had fled, and those who remained stayed holed up in their homes. Only a few businesses -- most selling food -- opened for a few hours.
"People are still scared," said Haim Biton, 42, predicting that things would not get back to normal soon. "You don't know what's going to happen."
"The city is still in a coma," said Shoshi Bar-Sheshet, the deputy manager of a mortgage bank. Getting back to normal, she said, "doesn't happen overnight."
Isaac Herzog, a senior minister in the Israeli Cabinet, said Israel expected some violations in the early days of the cease-fire. "Experience teaches us that after that a process begins of phased relaxation," in the fighting, he said.
Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Israel was uncertain the truce would hold. "I believe that it has a chance. I can't say for certain," he said moments before it went into force.
Peres said 500 Hezbollah fighters had been killed and 500 wounded, taking nearly half of its estimated 2,500-man first-line force out of action.
"Today Hezbollah is in a much worse situation then it was when the war opened," Peres said. "It is licking its wounds."
Though Israel claimed to have knocked out much of its firepower, the Shiite militia poured more than 250 rockets on northern Israel Sunday, the worst barrage in a single day since the fighting started. The rockets killed one man, wounded 53 people and ignited huge fires in the port city of Haifa.
Lebanon said nearly 791 people were killed since July 12. Israel said 116 soldiers and 39 civilians were killed in fighting or from Hezbollah rockets.
The AP contributed to this report.
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