Fragile U.N. ceasefire holds in Lebanon
By Nadim Ladki -BEIRUT (Reuters) - Heavy fighting in southern Lebanon stopped abruptly on Monday after a U.N.-brokered truce came into effect, but the shooting of two Hizbollah guerrillas by Israeli soldiers underlined the fragility of the calm. Security sources in south Lebanon said Israeli air strikes and artillery fire continued until just a few minutes before the truce took effect at 0500 GMT. Then there was silence. Across the border, no more Hizbollah rockets struck Israeli towns. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told parliament that Israel would keep pursuing Hizbollah's leaders "everywhere and any time." "The leaders of this terrorist organization have gone underground," he said. "They will not get off free."Israel shot dead a Hizbollah fighter in Lebanon after he fired on them, the first casualty since the truce began. The army said soldiers elsewhere shot another Hizbollah guerrilla aiming a gun at them. It was not known if he was killed.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese displaced by five weeks of fighting headed south toward their homes, choking bomb-damaged roads with their cars in spite of a warning from Israel not to return to the area. Drivers honked their horns in celebration.
Ahmed Nassereddine arrived in the village of Shihabiyeh to find out that his building and petrol station had been destroyed by an Israeli air strike just 10 minutes before the truce. "Thank God, we survived. Property can be replaced, souls can't," he said, holding back tears. In northern Israel, soldiers coming out of Lebanon were greeted with hugs and handshakes by their comrades. Streets became busier as residents emerged from homes and bomb shelters.
"I feel safer," said 12-year-old Johnny Wena, riding his bicycle through the streets of Metula. "I think Israel will have to go in again at some point, but for now I'm enjoying myself."
MORE THAN 1,250 KILLED
Around 1,100 people in Lebanon and 156 Israelis have been killed in the war that began after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Israel says around 530 Hizbollah guerrillas were killed in the war. Hizbollah has acknowledged only about 80 dead. Thousands of Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, and they are not expected to withdraw fully until an expanded UNIFIL peacekeeping force arrives alongside Lebanese troops.
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the truce appeared to be holding apart from isolated incidents, and pledged to name a team to conduct a "wide and thorough" investigation of the war. Opinion polls show a vast majority of Israelis supported the war, but many are critical about how it was handled.
Olmert acknowledged "shortcomings" in the conduct of the war and told parliament he bore full responsibility. Three opposition lawmakers were removed from the session for heckling. The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon met senior Lebanese and Israeli army officials at the border to discuss implementing the U.N. resolution on ending fighting.
BOTH SIDES CLAIM VICTORY
Israel's government says it inflicted a heavy blow on Hizbollah in the war. "We did not fail in this war," Interior Minister Roni Bar-On said. "The capabilities of (Hizbollah's) long-range rockets have been minimized almost to zero." Hizbollah has also claimed victory. A flyer distributed in Beirut proclaimed "the divine victory" and showed a Hizbollah flag flying above a rocket launcher and two guerrillas. An Israeli air strike on a van near the eastern city of Baalbek killed seven people minutes before the truce began, Lebanese medics said. Earlier raids killed at least 11 people.
Israel said that any vehicles on the roads in south Lebanon still risked attack. An air and sea blockade of Lebanon would also continue, a military source said.
Aid groups said they needed swift access to southern Lebanon to help 100,000 people stranded in the area south of the Litani river, which has not been reached by aid convoys for a week. "With the ceasefire in place, there can no longer be any no-go areas in Lebanon," David Shearer, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, said in a statement. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Friday, Israeli forces must start to withdraw as foreign peacekeepers and Lebanese soldiers deploy in the south. Hizbollah must also pull its fighters out of southern Lebanon.
Hizbollah has said it accepts the U.N. resolution although it regards some aspects of it as unjust. The truce has not resolved many key issues including the fate of the two captured Israeli soldiers, the question of whether Hizbollah will disarm and the status of the Shebaa Farms area which is claimed by Lebanon but occupied by Israel. The war in Lebanon coincided with an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip to free another captured soldier. An Israeli air strike on Monday killed three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip shortly after at least one rocket was fired into Israel from the area, doctors said. The Israeli army said it had targeted militants who had launched the rockets. (Additional reporting by Jerusalem bureau)

Bitter truce begins
Dozens are killed on eve of fragile peace
BY DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Israel and Hezbollah traded some of their fiercest attacks so far as both sides fought their way toward a shaky UN-brokered ceasefire that went into effect this morning. More than 30,000 Israeli troops pushed deeper into Lebanon yesterday while jets and missiles pounded suspected Hezbollah sites, killing dozens in the lead-up to today's 8 a.m. ceasefire deadline. In the final overnight hours before the truce, Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon and a Palestinian refugee camp in the south.
Hezbollah fired a record 250 rockets into northern Israel, killing one and injuring dozens.
With fighting raging down to the wire, both sides seemed less than certain that the guns would actually go quiet for long. But a half-hour after the ceasefire took hold, Israeli warplanes were absent across huge swaths of the country, including the Bekaa Valley, where air strikes hit about an hour before. There were no immediate reports of Hezbollah rockets being fired into Israel. "It will be a fragile truce," said a Western diplomat involved in the ceasefire negotiations.
Israel insists that it will still target Hezbollah rockets and launchers as a form of self-defense. The Islamic insurgents say they won't fire rockets into Israel but retain the right to fire on Israeli troops inside southern Lebanon. Despite the bloody countdown, the world was cheering the tantalizing possibility that the deadly battle might end. A surprisingly long list of .European and other countries volunteered to supply troops for a beefed-up security force that is supposed to patrol southern Lebanon and keep the peace.
"The object \[is\] to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said.
At least 1,082 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 149 Israelis, including at least 104 soldiers, have been killed in the war. The Israeli cabinet unanimously okayed the ceasefire yesterday.In Beirut, a snag arose when the Lebanese cabinet put off a crucial meeting dealing with plans to send 15,000 soldiers to south Lebanon. Under the deal, the weak Lebanese Army is expected to join the new foreign force in the war-ravaged area .between the Israeli border and the Litani River, a few miles to the north. In yesterday's fighting, five Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah rockets set fire to buildings in Haifa and killed an 83-year-old man in the town of Shlomi, Israeli papers reported. Also yesterday, a report in The New Yorker magazine said that Israel planned the offensive months ago and the Bush administration gave it the green light in advance. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports that Israel had decided to destroy Hezbollah with massive force and put the plan into motion after any provocation from the Islamic militants. The current war was sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers in a daring Hezbollah raid.

Olmert takes sole responsibility for war
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday he takes sole responsibility for the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and asserted that the fighting had shifted the strategic balance against the guerrillas. In a speech to parliament hours after a U.N. brokered cease-fire took effect, Olmert said the agreement eliminated the "state within a state" run by Hezbollah, and restored Lebanon's sovereignty in the south. Olmert's statement to the Knesset was his first since the early days of the war, which broke out July 12. With the cease-fire, the unity that governed Israeli politics was expected to quickly fracture. Three Knesset members were ejected from the parliament during Olmert's speech for heckling, and several others had called for a commission of inquiry into the offensive.
Following Olmert's speech, Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the opposition Likud Party, said there were many failures in the war.
With scores of soldiers and civilians killed in the 34 days of fighting, Olmert acknowledged there were "deficiencies" in the way the war was conducted. "We will have to review ourselves in all the battles," he said. "We won't sweep things under the carpet."Anticipating that another war with Hezbollah may come in the future, he said Israel will learn the lessons of this war and "do better." Olmert said the fighting brought a change in the strategic balance in the region, to Hezbollah's disadvantage. The militia's vast storehouse of weapons was mostly destroyed, and its self-confidence undermined, he said. "We will continue to pursue them everywhere and at all times," he said. "We have no intention of asking anyone's permission." He advised patience for his critics who believe that the war fell short of Israel's original goal of dismantling Hezbollah. "We don't plan to apologize," he said. Olmert also promised to do everything he could to win the return of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah on July 12 in an attack that triggered the war.

Refugees find widespread devastation
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
BINT JBAIL, Lebanon - There was no sign of life in Bint Jbail on Monday, only incinerated cars, devastated buildings and an Israel tank parked near the entrance to town. Many Lebanese headed to homes in the south hours after a cease-fire took effect Monday. But by afternoon, no one had reached Bint Jbail, a border town where Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas fought some of the war's deadliest battles.
A swath of flattened buildings ran through the center of town. Rows of burned-out cars sat on cratered streets. The road in was badly strafed, littered with unexploded artillery shells and remnants of missiles. An Israeli tank was parked 500 yards off the road on the approach to the town, less than three miles from the Israeli border. Israeli forces besieged Bint Jbail for a week, starting July 23, in their first main ground incursion into southern Lebanon. They met heavy resistance from guerrillas: In one ambush, eight soldiers were killed, one of the highest Israeli tolls in a single battle of the campaign.
Afterward, Israeli forces withdrew after only barely entering Bint Jbail, saying they had never intended to take the town, only tie down and batter guerrillas.
Hezbollah declared victory — burnishing the reputation of a town already known as the "capital of the resistance" because of its support for the guerrillas during the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation of the south. Most of Bint Jbail's 30,000 residents fled bombardment before the Israeli assault. When the siege ended, the 200 that had remained — most of them elderly — straggled out to find refuge farther north. In nearby villages, residents who had hid or fled to the nearby hills returned to survey the damage to their homes. A Greek Orthodox Church was punched through with holes in the room and all the buildings were smashed in Yaroun, a mainly Christian village a few miles south of Bint Jbail. Jamila Marina screamed and collapsed when she saw her destroyed home in Yaroun.
"Why did this happen. What have we done to deserve this," she yelled. She said she had just spent $35,000 remodelling and hadn't even had time to wash the new windows when she fled. Rosetta Ajaka, returned to find that her badly damaged home had been used as a Hezbollah outpost. A rocket launcher sat in the front garden. In the village of Kafra, farther north, returning residents found whole sections flattened and shrubs scorched. Some buildings still smoldered from attacks shortly before the cease-fire took effect Monday morning.
Many of those who returned looked dazed and seemed unable to recognize their neighborhoods. "I just want to find my house," said Ahmad Maana, an old man who came back on foot after spending more than a week hiding in the hills. Hezbollah fighters — rarely seen in earlier visits to southern villages — also appeared more openly. Two young men in khakis were spotted carrying semiautomatic rifles, and others talked into two-way radios. A few carloads of young men screeched into Kafra and jumped out of their cars, kissing waiting comrades on each cheek.