Hizbullah Returning To Israel-Lebanon Border,Combined News Sources

TEL AVIV - Hizbullah has returned to the Lebanese border with Israel.

Israeli military sources said Hizbullah operatives have been allowed by the Lebanese Army to return to the Israeli border. The sources said operatives have established safe houses and have organized unrest against the Israeli military.

"The situation could rapidly return to that of before July 12," said a military source, referring to the start of the Israeli-Hizbullah war.

The Hizbullah operatives have engaged in rock-throwing against Israeli soldiers and planted Hizbullah flags along the border.

Israeli troops have been under orders not to respond to the Hizbullah stone-throwing. Neither United Nations forces nor Lebanese troops have intervened.

On Tuesday, parliamentarian Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, appealed to Defense Minister Amir Peretz to stop Hizbullah stone-throwing at Israelis. Hanegbi warned that such Hizbullah behavior could quickly turn lethal.

A senior Israeli officer insisted Hizbullah has not renewed military activity against Israel. The officer told a briefing on Monday that the pro-Iranian militia has observed the cease-fire arranged by the UN on August 14.

The return of Hizbullah shattered an Israeli effort to establish a one-kilometer buffer zone along the border. Under the Israeli proposal, only Lebanese troops or UN peace-keepers would be allowed to enter the zone.

Israel still remains in 10 areas of southern Lebanon, the UN said. The last Israeli soldiers were originally expected to leave Lebanon by Oct. 1.

For his part, Peretz said Israeli troops would withdraw from Lebanon within 10 days. The minister said Israel has sought to clarify the rules of engagement with UN troops.

"I hope very much that during the coming week, at the most a few more days, we will complete the withdrawal," Peretz said after meeting the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday. "There are arrangements, negotiations, deliberations we intend to conclude to set the rules - what is permitted and forbidden - when we redeploy along the Blue Line [border with Lebanon]."

Meanwhile, UN troops in southern Lebanon are preparing defensive measures against possible suicide attacks in the wake of threats from Al Qaeda that the peace-keepers are considered enemies of Islam.

The UN forces - which currently number some 5,000 troops, a third of the total that will eventually be deployed - are setting up checkpoints and choosing remote areas for their bases. French soldiers are pitching base in Baraachit, which is located on a 2,600-foot high plateau.

Rohan Gunaratna, a leading expert on terrorism at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, told the Associated Press that UN forces face a significant terror risk.

"I think the peacekeeping forces must be prepared to suffer casualties. It is the most challenging peacekeeping mission that the international community has embarked on in a long time."

Many of the European peacekeepers see Al Qaeda as more of a threat than Hizbullah despite the fact that the latter group was blamed for th October 23, 1983, suicide truck bombing in Beirut that killed 58 French soldiers. That very day, a similar attack resulted in the death of 241 U.S. marines.

"I am more concerned about a group that is foreign to the Lebanese, such as Al Qaeda, than about Hizbullah," said Col. Luis Melendez, head of the Spanish military contingent in an interview last week.

(Reporting by MENL, JPFS and JTA)

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