Israel's soldiers leaving Lebanon

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER — Some smiled broadly and pumped their fists. Others wept and carried wounded comrades. Members of one unit carried a billowing Israeli flag. The troops sang a traditional Hebrew song with the lyrics: "We brought peace to you."

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers walked out of Lebanon on Tuesday as a cease-fire with Hezbollah solidified after a shaky start. The process was expected to accelerate over the coming days.

The international community looked to build a U.N. peacekeeping force for south Lebanon, but it remained unclear how quickly such a force could be deployed. The guerrillas' patrons, Syria and Iran, proclaimed that Hezbollah won its fight with Israel — claims the Bush administration dismissed as shameful blustering.

Some of the Israeli troops returning from Lebanon had been so disconnected from the news that they asked if Israel had managed to free two soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah on July 12 sparked the fighting. Israel had not. Several tanks headed back into Israel as well, including one that had been damaged and was being towed by a military bulldozer.

At times as they headed south, the soldiers crossed paths with Israeli civilians traveling in the opposite direction, back to the homes they abandoned weeks ago under Hezbollah rocket fire.

Areas of northern Israel that were turned into closed military zones weeks ago were reopened to civilian traffic, and the tanks, bulldozers and other heavy military vehicles that had lined the roads were gone. At one main junction, teenage girls handed out flowers to returning soldiers, thanking them for protecting their homes.

In the battered Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, residents emerged from grimy bomb shelters and began cleaning up the wreckage caused by more than a month of Hezbollah rocket attacks.

The partial Israeli withdrawal came in preparation for a Lebanese troop deployment across the Litani River, some 18 miles north of the Israeli border. Lebanon's deployment was expected to begin Thursday and eventually put its army in control of war-ravaged south Lebanon with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.

The United Nations hopes that 3,500 well-equipped troops can deploy to Lebanon within two weeks as the vanguard of a robust U.N. peacekeeping force to start the process of deploying the Lebanese army and withdrawing Israeli troops, a senior U.N. peacekeeping official said Tuesday.

But Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi stressed that the Lebanese deployment and Israeli withdrawal can start even sooner using the current 2,000-strong U.N. force "if the political will is there."