Israel Refuses Annan Request To End Blockade of Lebanon

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The New York Sun

JERUSALEM — Secretary-General Annan left Jerusalem empty-handed last night after Israel refused his request to end its sea and air blockade of Lebanon.

Instead, the Israeli government demanded the return of the two soldiers seized by Hezbollah last month as the price for implementing a U.N. Security Council resolution ending the war with the Shiite militia.

The demand prepares the ground for Israeli troops to remain in Lebanon indefinitely, raising the likelihood of another military confrontation.

The unconditional release of the two soldiers is not included in the 19 “action points” set out in the resolution, which was agreed after lengthy debate by the U.N. Security Council on August 11.

The diplomatic impasse worsens the already sour relations between the United Nations and Israel.

At a joint press conference after meeting Prime Minister Olmert, Mr. Annan referred to the sea and air blockade that Israel imposed as the start of the war last month. “I do believe the blockade should be lifted,” he said. When asked whether Israel would end the blockade, Mr. Olmert evaded the question, saying only that Israel wanted a full implementation of the cease-fire.

His office later issued a statement connecting Israel’s resolution implementation to the release of the two soldiers.

It said: “The prime minister emphasized that the main part of implementing the decision was the return of the abducted soldiers to their homes and said that Resolution 1701 would not be implemented in full without the soldiers’ release and return home.”

The resolution makes only passing reference to the two soldiers.

In Lebanon, Mohammed Fneish, the energy minister and a Hezbollah official, said the soldiers would be freed only as part of a wider prisoner exchange. “There is no unconditional release,” he said. “It is not feasible.”

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, increased pressure on Israel by disclosing that mine clearance experts had found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 sites in Lebanon.

He said it would take up to 15 months to clear the devices, which were claiming civilian lives daily, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

He said the “shocking new information” had come from checks by the U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center of 85% of the areas in Lebanon bombed by Israel.

[Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that Prime Minister Siniora of Lebanon said yesterday that he refused to have any direct contact with Israel and that Lebanon would be the last Arab country to ever sign a peace deal with the Jewish state.

“Let it be clear, we are not seeking any agreement until there is just and comprehensive peace based on the Arab initiative,” he said.

He was referring to a plan that came out of a 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut. It calls for Israel to return all territories that it conquered in the 1967 war, the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the Palestinian Arab refugee problem — all in exchange for peace and full normalization of Arab relations with Israel.

Israel has long sought a peace deal with Lebanon, but Beirut has hesitated as long as Israel’s conflicts with the Palestinian Arabs and Syria remained unresolved.

Mr. Siniora said Lebanon wants to go back to the 1949 armistice agreement that formally ended the Arab-Israeli war over Israel’s creation.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that U.N. peacekeepers pouring into southern Lebanon will be operating under a new, streamlined system that may change the way the organization carries out armed missions around the world.

The changes to the command structure and rules of engagement were obtained last week by France as a condition of its commitment of 1,600 additional soldiers to the U.N. force. Local commanders on the ground will now have greater leeway to use force, and the chain of command will be clearer.

“One of the lessons from past experience is that chain of command is the big issue,” a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Dana Allin, said. “There is definitely a feeling that the old U.N. peacekeeping model doesn’t work.”

The Lebanon mission, with a mandate to create a buffer zone between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah militia, will answer to a new strategic command center located in New York and staffed by officers from the contributing countries, which now include France, Italy, Spain, and several other European nations. Their commitments total between 6,500 and 7,000 soldiers, or less than half of the planned force of 15,000.

Italy, as the largest contributor with 3,000 troops, will take command of the New York-based center, while France’s Major General Alain Pellegrini will remain in charge of troops on the ground in Lebanon until February 2007, when he will be replaced by an Italian. The ground commander will make any decisions regarding the immediate use of force by the U.N. troops, both in self-defense and in some other situations.

While U.N. Security Council resolutions in 2004 and this month call for disarming Hezbollah, the peacekeeping mission is not charged with enforcing them; the U.N. hopes that job will be negotiated by the Lebanese army. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s remaining arsenal, and Israel’s presence in and near southern Lebanon, will put the U.N. force in a precarious situation, Mr. Allin said.

“This will be the test, and a very difficult one,” he said. “Being stuck between Israel and Hezbollah is not a very enviable situation.”

“The existence in New York of an Italian general is an improvement, but it is not going to provide the solution to the U.N.’s problems in Lebanon,” a senior researcher at the Paris-based Center for International Studies and Research, Therese Delpech, said. For instance, she said, it is not clear whether U.N. forces will be able to intercept arms shipments sent to Hezbollah, whose principal patrons are Iran and Syria.]


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