Boys greet Lebanese soldiers who deployed in the city of Tyre. (Reuters)

BEIRUT, 18 August 2006 — Lebanese troops deployed in south Lebanon yesterday, linking up with UN peacekeepers as Israeli forces pulled back after their 34-day war with Hezbollah. Lebanese troops crossed the Litani River, some 20 km from the Israeli border, to take over a region the army has not controlled for decades.

A UN-backed truce halted the fighting on Monday after the Security Council adopted a resolution calling for the Lebanese army and an expanded UN force of up to 15,000 troops to deploy in the south and replace Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

More than 100 trucks, troop carriers and jeeps streamed across a makeshift bridge on the Litani to the mainly Christian town of Marjayoun, about 8 km from the Israeli border.

UNIFIL, the 2,000-strong UN peacekeeping force already in Lebanon, said about 800 Lebanese troops had deployed in the Marjayoun area and some 500 around the town of Tibnin.

Dozens of people lined roads, waving red and white Lebanese flags and throwing rice and flowers in celebration. “May God protect you,” 64-year-old Khadeeja Sheet shouted at the passing soldiers. “We support nobody except for our army.”

Along the main road of Qlaiah, men, women and children stood outside their homes from dawn, cheering the Lebanese soldiers. “We’ve been waiting for this hour for 50 years. If they don’t protect us, who will?” said Malek Maroun, 53, standing outside his home with his wife and children.

“The sight of the army opens up the heart, I’ve been here since this morning, cheering and clapping them as they came in,” said Abd Reda Fawaz, 58, a slaughterhouse owner in the southern town of Jouaya.

A total of 15,000 government troops are due to take control of the longtime Hezbollah bastion in southern Lebanon along with a promised expanded UN peacekeeping force.

“We should deploy within 24 hours along the Blue Line,” the UN-demarcated border between Lebanon and Israel, said Gen. Charles Shikhani, commander of the Marjayoun area. Israel said it had handed control of half the zones it was occupying to UN peacekeepers and that of the 30,000 troops who poured in to Lebanon at the height of the war, all reserve units have left.

The United Nations has said it hopes 3,500 new UN troops can join UNIFIL within two weeks. President Jacques Chirac announced yesterday that France would immediately double to 400 its contingent in the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Chirac’s office made the statement after his phone conversation with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. France currently leads the UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon, and is closely watched over its role in an enhanced peacekeeping force in the region. In the conversation, Chirac said France “will immediately double its current contribution by sending 200 men, bringing its contingent to 400,” the statement said.

The proposal will be presented at a UN meeting in New York later designed to flesh out which countries will participate in the peacekeeping force as it expands from the current 2,000 troops to up to 15,000, Chirac’s office said.

Chirac told Annan that France was ready to command the strengthened force, which is expected to work with the Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon.