Think the Israelis anticipated the flood of refugees returning south?

[bigtree]

That should put a crimp in their plans to cordon the area south of the river off for a sweep of Hizbollah combatants.

August 14 2006 at 03:23PM

By Hussein Saad

Shihabiyeh, Lebanon - Tens of thousands of Lebanese refugees headed back towards their homes in the south on Monday as guns fell silent under a United Nations-brokered truce to end five weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hundreds made it to a string of villages south of the Litani River and east of the port city of Tyre, despite bombed-out roads and an Israeli ban on movement.

But none appeared to have immediately headed back to Israeli-held territory in south Lebanon.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1155561122971B253

[bigtree]

1. UN resumes aid convoys to southern Lebanon

"Now that the ceasefire is implemented, we should be able to deliver aid to any region," UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon David Shearer said in a statement.

Shearer said the south would remain "very dangerous" for many weeks to come and urged locals to exercise "extreme caution," due to the large quantities of unexploded artillery and mortar shells that fell across the countryside.

UN refugee agency spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort said that awareness campaigns would be launched by UN agencies to inform people about the risks of handling unexploded shells.

"We cannot stop people from going home, but they have to be cautions," she told reporters.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HVAN-6SNM2Q?OpenDocument