Peacekeepers Bring Calm to South Lebanon

An Indonesian soldier says goodbye to his son as his unit prepares to leave for their U.N. peacekeeping assignment in Lebanon Thursday, Nov. 23, 2006 at Sukarno Hatta airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. More than 700 Indonesian soldiers are leaving for Lebanon in coming days to join a U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring a cease-fire between Israel and the militant Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) (Tatan Syuflana - AP)

Hezbollah, the guerrilla group that fought Israeli forces, so far has hidden its guns and pledged cooperation in the south, even as it has fought a bitter political battle in Beirut.

In the past, a smaller UNIFIL force regularly encountered guerrillas attempting to attack Israel, but UNIFIL and the Lebanese army "have not encountered any Hezbollah armed personnel in the area, nor detected any hostile action" since fighting ended, peacekeepers said in a statement last week.

Since September, UNFIL has reported seven instances where its units have discovered unauthorized arms or related materials and informed the Lebanese army, which took action to either confiscate or destroy the weapons.

Most significant were two seizures of the guerrillas' favorite weapons _ Katyusha rockets like those that rained on northern Israeli towns during the fighting and improvised explosive devices that have been used against Israeli armor. The areas where they were found are known as hideouts of radical Syrian-backed Palestinian guerrillas, and not of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has said it possesses over 30,000 rockets and most are believed to be Katyushas.

The seizures, though small, show that UNIFIL and the Lebanese army will not tolerate unauthorized weapons _ meaning Hezbollah, which previously ruled south Lebanon unopposed for years, is forced to hide its weapons.

Nevertheless, Israel has insisted that more should be done. It calls its Lebanese overflights necessary to monitor the situation, but both UNIFIL and Lebanon have called them violations of the U.N.-demarcated border.

On two occasions, French peacekeepers came close to firing on Israeli aircraft overflying Lebanon, believing the planes were preparing to attack. "Our troops barely avoided a catastrophe," French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said after the first incident.