NAQURA, Lebanon - The Lebanese army, backed by UN peacekeepers, took up positions Saturday for the first time in decades on the ‘Blue Line’ border demarcation with Israel, after Israeli troops withdrew from the region. Around 400 soldiers supported by tanks were deployed at five points on the border’s western sector, including at Naqura on the Mediterranean coast and Labbuneh, three kilometres (two miles) inland, an army spokesman told AFP.The posts, set up with the support of a Ghanaian armoured unit of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), stand some 100 metres (yards) from Israeli army positions on the other side of the border.
The spokesman said Lebanese soldiers were also deployed at Hula, Markaba and Mays Al Jabal, leaving the Israeli army in the western sector holding on to only a single post in Marwahin, some 30 km east of Naqura.
UNIFIL commander Major General Alain Pelligrini said on Friday that Israeli forces withdrew from more points on the UN-demarcated Blue Line and should have pulled out completely by the end of this month.
Pellegrini said the Israeli army pulled out of ‘an area south of Naqura, and the general area’ of the Lebanese village of Mays Al Jabal, clearing the way for UNIFIL to coordinate the deployment of Lebanese troops in the areas. The Israelis ‘have vacated most of the territory in the south,’ he said. ‘We are almost there, and with the assistance of UNIFIL, Lebanese armed forces will very soon be able to take control of the whole south Lebanon including the areas along the Blue Line,’ he said.