IDF, UNIFIL meeting goes up in smoke
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 26, 2006
A meeting between IDF officers, representatives of the Lebanese army and the UNIFIL commander ended without results on Tuesday, threatening to further postpone the IDF's complete withdrawal from Lebanon until next week.
The IDF had initially planned to pull out its remaining several hundred troops from Lebanon by the end of the week.
A source in the Northern Command said that the meeting, which took place Tuesday meeting at UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura - north of Rosh Hanikra - was a "failure" and that the IDF threatened to keep its soldiers inside Lebanon for as long as it took for UNIFIL to take its job seriously.
"We told UNIFIL that we plan to pull our troops out of Lebanon by Yom Kippur," a high-ranking officer said, referring to the Jewish festival this Sunday. "Although we haven't committed to a year."
The meeting went to pieces after the IDF demanded that UNIFIL adopt more combative rules of engagement. What particularly angered the IDF was an interview UNIFIL's commander Maj.-General Alain Pellegrini gave to The Jerusalem Post last week and in which he said the peacekeeping force would not actively engage Hizbullah guerrillas even if they were on their way or in the midst of an attack against Israel.
"We demand more effective rules of engagement," the officer said. "If they don't adopt them, we are prepared to stay in Lebanon for as long as necessary."
In an official statement to the press Pellegrini said that the meeting was constructive. "It is my belief that with the necessary cooperation by both parties we should see the IDF leave South Lebanon by the end of this month," he said.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert backed up Israel's decision to accept resolution 1701 in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
"I think it is a slow process, and sometimes some of the UNIFIL people - Pellegrini and others - because of all kinds of complex political considerations don't want to announce publicly that which might irritate some, but at the same time when you look at the ground and see what is going on you see the reality is that you don't see Hizbullah any place," Olmert said.
By Monday, the IDF had transferred control of 95 percent of Lebanon to the Lebanese army via UNIFIL. Several hundred IDF soldiers, the officer said, were still present inside Lebanon although only several hundred meters from the Blue Line. The IDF's current plans and intentions, a high-ranking officer said, was to transfer the remaining territory to UNIFIL by the end of the week.
The Lebanese army, the officer said, had deployed 15,000 soldiers in southern Lebanon, some of which were already stationed along the Blue Line at Naqoura and north of Kiryat Shmona. The soldiers, the officer said, were patrolling areas known as Hizbullah strongholds and were checking cars to prevent the transfer of weapons to the guerrilla group at roadblocks they had erected along main roads.
IDF, UNIFIL meeting goes up in smoke=====================================
Again, another failure for the UN.
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