Lebanese troops begin deploying south of Litani River

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon — Lebanese troops, tanks and armored vehicles deployed south of the Litani River on Thursday, a key provision of the U.N. cease-fire plan that ended fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The deployment marked a first step toward extending government control in a region Lebanese troops have largely avoided for four decades.

In Beirut, the international airport reopened to commercial traffic for the first time since July 13 when it was attacked by Israeli warplanes and gunboats. A Middle East Airlines passenger jet touched down from Amman, Jordan, ending a 36-day Israeli blockade. A Royal Jordanian flight followed soon after.

MEA Chairman Mohammed Hout said the blockade had been partially lifted to allow flights between Amman and Beirut. Airport officials said full commercial traffic could resume next week.

Israel's military said it was coordinating the arrivals, but said they were a one-time affair and did not constitute an end to the air blockade.

Meanwhile, the head of Lebanon's largest parliamentary block blasted both Israel and Syria in a fiery nationalistic speech to hundreds of supporters.

Saad Hariri accused Israel of "living off the blood" of Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab people. He also accused Syria of trying to sow strife in its weaker neighbor, where it kept an occupation force for 29 years.

Lebanon's Cabinet on Wednesday approved the plan to deploy army troops south of the Litani River, but the government said soldiers would not hunt down Hezbollah guerrillas and would not try to disarm them.

In southern Lebanon, Lebanese troops in ten armored carriers mounted on flatbed trucks drove across a newly installed metal bridge over the Litani at dawn, escorted by several military vehicles. The bridge was built by the army to replace a structure that was bombed by Israeli warplanes during the 34-day offensive.

"There will be no confrontation between the army and brothers in Hezbollah. ... That is not the army's mission," said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi after the two-hour Cabinet meeting. "They are not going to chase or, God forbid, exact revenge" on Hezbollah.

The deployment, while falling short of U.N. and Israeli insistence on Hezbollah's disarmament, is a major step in meeting demands that militants be removed from the Jewish state's northern frontier. The army deployment marks the extension of government sovereignty over the whole country for the first time since 1969, when a weak Lebanese government sanctioned Palestinian guerrilla cross-border attacks on Israel.

Relief goods poured into the country Thursday, but aid workers were struggling to move the supplies to the areas worst affected by the month of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, U.N. officials said.