BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – The Lebanese Cabinet agreed Wednesday to deploy the Lebanese army south of the Litani River starting the next day, a key demand of the cease-fire that halted 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. But it left unclear the issue of disarming the Islamic militant group.

The decision to start deploying the army on Thursday came as top foreign diplomats planned the dispatch of a 15,000-strong international force that eventually is to join the Lebanese troops in patrolling the region between the Israeli border and the river, 18 miles to the north.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France is willing to lead the enlarged U.N. force in Lebanon until at least February. But she expressed concern that the force’s mandate was “fuzzy” and said the peacekeepers need to have sufficient resources and a clear mission.

The divided Lebanese Cabinet, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, held its first meeting since the cease-fire went into effect on Monday. The 15,000 Lebanese troops and the U.N. peacekeepers will slowly take over territory from withdrawing Israeli forces. Israel had threatened to halt its withdrawal if the Lebanese force did not move south.

The government ordered the army, which has been assembling north of the river, to “insure respect” for the Blue Line, the U.N.-demarcated border between Lebanon and Israel, and “apply the existing laws with regard to any weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state.”

That provision does not require Hezbollah to give up its arms, but rather directs them to keep them off the streets. “There will be no authority or weapons other than those of the state,” said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said.

Hezbollah’s top official in south Lebanon said the group welcomed the Lebanese army’s deployment even as he hinted that the Shiite guerrillas would not disarm in the region or withdraw but rather melt into the local population and hide their weapons.

“Just like in the past, Hezbollah had no visible military presence and there will not be any visible presence now,” Sheik Nabil Kaouk told reporters Wednesday in the southern port city of Tyre.

It will mark the first time Lebanon’s national army moved in force to a region that was held by Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970s and by Hezbollah since Israel’s troop withdrawal from the area in 2000.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it would help tens of thousands of people reconstruct homes that were destroyed in a month of war with Israel, a move likely to boost its standing among Shiite Muslims, who make up about 35 percent of Lebanon’s 4 million people.

The mayor of a southern town said 32 more bodies were pulled from rubble, as rescue workers drove into areas that were previously inaccessible because of the heavy fighting.

Foreign diplomats worked to assemble the international force that will augment the current 2,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which has been in the area for more than two decades.

Visiting Beirut on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said France would commit troops to the United Nations peacekeeping force that will deploy in south Lebanon, but did not say how many soldiers. U.N. diplomats and officials say France’s reticence to give a number has held up announcements of troop commitments from other countries.

Douste-Blazy also urged Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon, saying it was unnecessary because the U.N.-imposed cease-fire was holding.

“The blockade imposed on the airport and Lebanese ports should be lifted. We ask Israeli authorities to lift the land and sea siege on Lebanon. And we ask the Lebanese government to strengthen monitoring” of points of entry to insure Hezbollah weapons are banned, Douste-Blazy said.

The blockade was instituted shortly after fighting began July 12, when Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel bombed the Beirut international airport, blocked seaports and began destroying road links to Syria.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the blockade is still necessary until the peacekeeping force is in place to prevent the Islamic militant group from rearming.

“Israel cannot allow a situation in which Hezbollah could be strategically rearmed,” he said, adding that “Israel will do everything we can to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid to the people of Lebanon” in the interim.

The U.N. hopes 3,500 international troops can reinforce U.N. contingent already on the ground within 10 to 15 days to help consolidate the cease-fire and create conditions for Israeli forces to head home, Assistant U.N. Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi said.

The U.N. resolution passed Friday authorized the peacekeepers to use force “to ensure the movement of aid workers and protect civilians in imminent danger, among other situations.” But France has been demanding a more specific mandate, including when it may use firepower.

“When you send in a force and its mission is not precise enough, and its resources are not well adapted or large enough, that can turn into a catastrophe, including for the solders that we send,” Alliot-Marie said.

Israel has begun drawing down troops in the area, which numbered as high as 30,000 during the conflict, but a military chief said Wednesday that Israeli soldiers would remain in southern Lebanon for months, if necessary, until replaced by U.N. and Lebanese army soldiers, Israel Radio reported.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz spoke in response to an intelligence assessment that it could take months for the U.N.-Lebanese force to deploy, the radio station reported. On Tuesday, Halutz had predicted Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within seven to 10 days.

In a sign of lingering danger in south Lebanon, security officials said an explosive detonated Wednesday in the town of Nabatiyeh, killing a 20-year-old man. The victim, Ali Turkieh, stepped on the bomb outside his family home. A girl in the area was injured by explosives a day earlier.

Aid officials said unexploded bombs littering southern Lebanon were forcing relief workers to move gingerly to deliver food and fuel to people cut off by weeks of fighting and to evacuate war wounded to hospitals. Lebanese authorities and Hezbollah sent teams across south Lebanon to clear explosives from the battlefield.

At a makeshift registration center set up in a Beirut high school, Hezbollah officials with pens and notebooks wrote down contact details of hundreds of people who need money to rebuild. The group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has promised money for civilians to pay rent and buy furniture.

A Hezbollah official said all destroyed buildings will be reconstructed exactly as they were. The source of the funding was unclear, though Hezbollah receives money from Iran.

“We will use the same maps,” he said. “We will give their flats back but they will be new flats.”

Lebanese refugees returning home have clogged the road from Beirut to the southern port of Tyre, but farther south near the Israeli border the scene is more desolate, said Annick Bouvier, spokeswoman in Geneva for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“There is a lot of unexploded ordnance and in the very remote areas of southern Lebanon,” Bouvier told The Associated Press. “There is not much traffic because it is a highly dangerous area to move due to unexploded ordnance.”

At least 842 people were killed in Lebanon during the 34-day campaign, most of them civilians. Israel suffered 157 dead _ including 118 soldiers.