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Lebanon: UN commander in Lebanon discusses speedy Israeli withdrawal from final post

9 October 2006 – The senior United Nations commander in Lebanon held talks with Lebanese and Israeli officers today over a speedy withdrawal by Israel from the last position it still occupies in the south of the country after this summer’s conflict with Hizbollah.

“The meeting was productive and the main focus was to finalize the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) withdrawal,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Acting Commander Brig.-General J.P. Nehra said in a statement.

“The situation around Gadjar was discussed with a view of ensuring a speedy withdrawal of IDF from the area,” the statement added, referring to the village straddling the line separating the two countries, the only position Israel still holds following its final withdrawal from all other positions on 1 October.

During the meeting, the IDF provided UNIFIL with the maps of minefields in South Lebanon as of June 2000, when it withdrew after an earlier 18-year occupation of a band of Lebanese territory. UNIFIL handed the maps over to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre and to the Lebanese armed forces for review.

A complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, together with Lebanese army deployment in the area, is a key clause in UN Resolution 1701 that ended the 34 days of fighting in August.

The Resolution also mandates strengthening UNIFIL to a maximum of 15,000 troops. At present it has some 5,000 troops on the ground, but the second phase of deployment may be delayed by up to a month due to problems of logistics and capacity, the UN Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC) said in it latest update.

In a related development, the three-member Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the systematic targeting and killing of civilians by Israel in Lebanon, concluded their mission there on Saturday and have returned to Geneva.

The Commission, which met with top officials of the Lebanese Government as well as with Members of Parliament, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN agencies and local and international press, visited south Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and Byblos, and spent four days in southern Lebanon, gathering information directly from municipalities, communities and citizens. It will now prepare its report to the Council.