August 8, 2000
Lebanese Interior Minister Michel Murr had given the go-ahead for a joint Lebanese force of army troops and police to deploy in the former occupied zone early Wednesday. Murr said that the 1,000-member force will start deploying at 3 a.m. after the Lebanese government was informed by U.N. peacekeepers that they had completed their first phase of deployment inside the liberated border zone.
The move comes amid growing tension on the border fence with Israeli troops firing back at stone throwers and Molotov cocktails, wounding four civilians on Sunday. The force will be made up of 500 troops and 500 policemen. The 500-member army force will be the first to deploy in the former Israeli-occupied zone of southern Lebanon since Israel withdrew on May 24.
Meanwhile, a U.N. statement distributed in Beirut said that U.N. peacekeepers are preparing to expand their presence in southern. The statement quoted U.N. Secertary-General Kofi Annan's deputy spokesman Manoel de Al Meida e Silva as saying that the UNIFIL has deployed in 17 new positions along the U.N. drawn withdrawal Blue Line and will deploy in 11 more positions in the next few days. He expressed U.N. concern about escalating stone-throwing attacks from the Lebanese side of the fence on Israeli soldiers and farmers in the recent days.
It was not immediately clear whether U.N. troops would establish a position near the Fatima Gate to prevent such stone-throwing attacks. Murr has said that security at the border is the job of U.N. peacekeepers and not that of a joint force of Lebanese troops.
