Lebanon Truce to Resume, Arab League Envoy Says

Warring Lebanese factions agreed Wednesday to implement a cease-fire plan to end the Beirut bloodbath that has killed more than 250 people in eight weeks, an Arab League peacemaker said.

“There is no justification for a single shot to be fired in Lebanon as of now,” Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Ibrahimi told reporters after meeting separately with Lebanon’s rival Cabinet leaders--Sunni Muslim Salim Hoss and Christian Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun.

Ibrahimi said Aoun now has “accepted to implement the decision adopted by the Arab foreign ministers, which calls for lifting all blockades imposed on all air and sea ports.” The statement appeared to remove a stumbling block in the Arab League-brokered truce, originally called April 28.

The truce had scaled down indiscriminate bombardment near Beirut. But it was violated repeatedly because Aoun had rejected the clause requiring him to stop the blockade of three illegal militia-run ports.

Late Wednesday, police reported some sniper fire from Muslim West Beirut into the Christian sector. But one spokesman played it down, saying: “It seems the cease-fire orders haven’t been issued yet.”