Israel to leave divided village

Nearly two months after the rest of its army left southern Lebanon, Israel agreed Sunday to pull its few dozen remaining soldiers from the Lebanese part of a village divided by the border, yielding control to U.N. peacekeepers.

The move came as Israel’s Cabinet discussed the 3-day-old siege of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government by masses of pro-Hezbollah demonstrators in Beirut. Commentators here called the troop pullout a diplomatic gesture aimed at shoring up Siniora’s position, but some said it would be of little help.

Israeli officials are alarmed by the crisis in Lebanon, fearing that a collapse of the moderate regime could bring to power an Iranian proxy state on Israel’s northern border and lead to another war like the inconclusive 34-day conflict last summer with Iranian ally Hezbollah.

The pullback of troops to the Israeli side of the border-straddling village of Ghajar was ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other senior officials but not formally announced, apparently out of concern that an overt Israeli effort to influence events in Beirut might backfire.

Instead, the decision was leaked to reporters by an Israeli official, who described it as the result of weeks of talks between Israel and the United Nations and an interim step in ongoing negotiations over the village’s ultimate status.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israeli troops would be gone within days.

Ghajar’s 2,500 residents, most of them from the Alawite sect, hold Israeli citizenship. The village passed from Syrian to Israeli control when Israel conquered the nearby Golan Heights in the Middle East War of 1967.

With Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978, however, the village began growing northward into Lebanese territory. After Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the two countries argued inconclusively over which should control Ghajar and ended up dividing it: They built a fence with crossing points so villagers can go back and forth. Those on the Lebanese side continue to hold Israeli identification cards and receive Israeli state services.

After crossing the border to fight the Hezbollah militia last summer, Israel built a new fence separating Ghajar from the rest of Lebanon and posted troops within the Lebanese section of the village, a move the Israelis said was aimed at closing off a potential Hezbollah infiltration route.

Lebanese officials said the Israeli soldiers’ continued presence on Lebanese soil was a violation of U.N. Resolution 1701, which settled the summer war. Hezbollah often cites the Israeli presence to justify its belligerence toward the Jewish state.

Under Sunday’s accord, the U.N. peacekeeping force sent to monitor the border after the war will control access to the village from Lebanon and be responsible for the safety of Israelis who deliver public services.

A final resolution, which could take several months, is expected to split the village definitively into Lebanese- and Israeli-administered municipali ties, after allowing residents to choose which side to live on.

Aside from the diplomatic move, Israeli officials and commentators said there was little they could do for Siniora.

“Anything appearing as a positive gesture from Israel to Siniora and Lebanon will only worsen the situation,” Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, former head of military intelligence, told Israel’s Army Radio.

“I have no doubt that if this [Lebanese] government loses its power,” he said, “we are headed toward an escalation in the north starting from the spring or summer of 2007.”

Israel is also under pressure from sporadic attacks from the Gaza Strip, in violation of a week-old truce with the Palestinians. Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a meeting of security officials that 15 Kassam rockets had been fired from the territory during the week.

Olmert’s office issued a statement saying Israel would continue to refrain from retaliation but “would not be able to hold back for much longer” if the rocket fire continued.

A spokesman for the militant group Islamic Jihad, one of several Palestinian parties to the cease-fire, said the accord was “on the verge of collapse,” and it threatened to strike inside Israel “in the coming hours.”

The spokesman, Abu Ahmed, cited unspecified “attacks against the Palestinian people.”

The Palestinians have called for Israeli restraint in the West Bank, which is not covered by the accord. Israeli troops there have killed at least six people in the last week, including a 15-year-old boy shot in the head Sunday in Nablus when soldiers opened fire on stone throwers.

boudreaux@latimes.com