Israeli army returns border region to control of Lebanese, international forces

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli army has turned over a small border area in southern Lebanon to Lebanese and international troops, military officials said Thursday, a symbolic move meant to pave the way for a heavily armed U.N. peacekeeping force to move into the volatile area.\nThe pullback came as an international donors conference in Sweden pledged nearly $1 billion to help Lebanon rebuild, after the country's prime minister told the gathering that Israel's war with Hezbollah wiped out "15 years of postwar development."\nIsrael sent up to 30,000 soldiers into Lebanon during the 34-day war, and when the fighting ended, they occupied a zone extending about 10 miles north from the border.\nSince the U.N.-brokered cease-fire took effect Aug. 14, Israel has been slowly transferring control of the area to Lebanese troops, who will be bolstered by U.N. troops equipped with tanks, howitzers and other heavy weapons not usually seen with a peacekeeping force.\nThe armament is meant to deter all parties from resuming the conflict and particularly is seen as a warning to the Shiite militants of Hezbollah, who effectively ran southern Lebanon for two decades and used it as a base to launch sporadic attacks on Israel.\nOn Wednesday, Israel's army withdrew from a small area of the border near the Israeli town of Metulla, putting Lebanese and U.N. troops in control of a section of the border for the first time since the early 1980s, the Israeli military said. The area was roughly 12 square miles.\nLebanon said its army sent reconnaissance teams to the area Thursday and had begun deploying troops there. The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, confirmed Lebanese troops were moving into the area and said small numbers of international soldiers also were deploying.\n"Over the past 24 hours, UNIFIL established checkpoints and conducted intensive patrolling confirming this morning that the IDF (Israeli Defense Force troops) were no longer present there," a UNIFIL statement said.