In Srifa, south of the Litani river, they found 26 bodies beneath ruins which I myself stood on just three days ago. At Ainata, there were eight more bodies of civilians. A corpse was discovered beneath a collapsed four-storey house north of Tyre and, near by, the remains of a 16-year old girl, along with three children and an adult. In Khiam in eastern Lebanon, besieged by the Israelis for more than a month, the elderly village "mukhtar" was found dead in the ruins of his home.

Not all the dead were civilians. At Kfar Shuba, dumper-truck drivers found the bodies of four Hizbollah members. At Roueiss, however, all 13 bodies found in the wreckage of eight 10-storey buildings were civilians. They included seven children and a pregnant woman. Ten more bodies were disentangled from the rubble of the southern suburbs of Beirut - where local people claimed they could still hear the screams of neighbours trapped far below the bomb-smashed apartment blocks. The Lebanese civil defence organisation - almost as brave as the Lebanese Red Cross in trying to save lives under fire - believe at least three families may be trapped in basements deep below the wreckage.

Ignoring the dangers of unexploded ordnance, several Lebanese Shia Muslims returned to their destroyed homes to retrieve personal belongings - including family snapshots and albums that contain the narrative of their lives - only to fall between gaps in the broken apartment blocks and plunge dozens of feet into the darkness beneath. Among the last to die only minutes before the UN ceasefire came into effect was a child who was found in her dead mother's arms in Beirut.

How many of these dead would have survived if George Bush and Tony Blair had demanded an immediate ceasefire weeks ago will never be known. But many would have had the chance of life had Western governments not regarded this dirty war as an "opportunity" to create a "new" Middle East by humbling Iran and Syria.

Ignoring the dangers of unexploded ordnance, several Lebanese Shia Muslims returned to their destroyed homes to retrieve personal belongings - including family snapshots and albums that contain the narrative of their lives - only to fall between gaps in the broken apartment blocks and plunge dozens of feet into the darkness beneath. Among the last to die only minutes before the UN ceasefire came into effect was a child who was found in her dead mother's arms in Beirut.

How many of these dead would have survived if George Bush and Tony Blair had demanded an immediate ceasefire weeks ago will never be known. But many would have had the chance of life had Western governments not regarded this dirty war as an "opportunity" to create a "new" Middle East by humbling Iran and Syria.

Israeli F16 warplanes destroyed a three-floor building while some members of the Sha'ath family were still inside the house. Ambulance crews and civil defence forces rushed to the demolished house and were able to removed the two dead bodies and the two injured people. They are continuing to search under the rubble for more injured people who are thought to be trapped underneath.

Eyewitnesses said that half the building's residents had left before the bombardment , but several others were unable to leave in time. They pointed out that the Israeli army gave residents very little warning before they bombed the building claiming that it belonged to a member of the Al Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement.

The Israeli army said that Israeli forces injured two Palestinian gunmen during an armed clash between members of the Palestinian resistance in Al Farahin, east of Khan Younis, and several Israeli forces and military vehicles positioned near the Israeli-Gaza border fence in Khan Younis.

The Israeli army added that Israeli forces fired at Palestinian gunmen attempting to infiltrate into Israel near the Kissufim crossing. Mu'atasim Kdeeh, 20, was killed and another injured. The Israeli forces arrested the injured man whose identity is not known.

Eyewitnesses said that the Palestinian resistance fighters launched one rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) into an Israeli military vehicle, hitting it directly. They added that the armed clash lasted for a long time and a heavy exchange fo fire could be heard.

The most dangerous of the ordnance littering south Lebanon after 34 days of Israeli bombardment are bomblets spewed from cluster bombs packed into Israeli artillery shells, Clark explained.

"Our primary problem is the cluster bombs," he said. The bomblets they spit out are small round explosives that Clark likened to a small grenade. A cluster bomb can be delivered either by air or by artillery shells. In this war, he said, Israel delivered them by shells that exploded before hitting the ground. That sprayed small bomblets over an area half the size of a football field.

Normally, cluster bombs are used against tanks and explode on impact with steel. But in this conflict, Clark said, the shells were fired into areas, both urban and rural, where Israel thought Hezbollah guerrillas might be hiding.

Because the targets were not tanks, many bomblets fell on the ground or asphalt pavement and did not explode.

"This leaves them in an angry state, a very volatile state," said Clark. The bomblets are barely the size of a flashlight battery.

Southern Lebanon has a long history of war and deadly explosives. Before the latest fighting began July 12 with the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas, mine clearers had removed most of the ordnance from past conflicts below the Litani River, 18 miles north of the border. The exception was land mines that run the length of Lebanon's border with Israel. They were planted by Israel and U.N. mine clearers have maps with their locations.

Hasan said he was not sure what he picked up not far from his home in Haris, 12 miles from the southern port city of Tyre. Lying in his bed at Jamal Amal Hospital in Tyre, Hasan said he planned to return home but fears a fresh encounter with explosives.

In the village of Tibnin, near the border town of Bint Jbail - scene of some of the most brutal ground combat - the main street is covered with bomblets.

"They are all over. Anybody on the street is in danger," said Roland Huguenin, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. "A car almost drove over one, and I was yelling 'stop, stop.' You will kill us both."

Outside the hospital in Tibnin, U.N. mine clearing teams collected dozens of bomblets that they later exploded. Clark said Tibnin was especially dangerous. He estimated that 80 percent of all the bomblets that fell there had not exploded.

The tens of thousands of refugees returning to their homes in the south are vulnerable. Often, the bomblets are buried in the rubble of ruined villages.

"You might just be moving a piece of debris and you won't realize what it is and it can kill you," Clark said.

In Taibeh, also near the border with Israel, residents were living in fear.

Manifa Haider, 35, returned after fleeing to Syria. In an eggplant patch at her hilltop home in Taibeh are two 3-foot-wide holes. Some kind of Israeli projectile is just visible in each.

"I'm scared. I'm scared to go in my garden, but we have to eat. We have no water, no supermarket, everything is gone," she said. "We keep our children in the house. They can't play outside anymore. You don't know what they (unexploded ordnance) look like, toys, some look like pencils or pens."

Clark said no explosive devices are disguised as toys. "Everything is straight ordnance," he said.

In Marjayoun, Andy Gleeson, a spokesman and engineer with the British-based Mines Advisory Group, said the bomblets make victims of the unaware.

"The danger lies in naivete and in tampering. It lies in people picking items up and moving them around, and that's not safe."

Last night Rina was transferred to Hadasa Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem from the Hebron hospital in the West Bank for more extensive tests. They found in an MRI that she has small bleeding in her brain from a concussion she received when an Israeli border policeman beat her with his gun at the demonstration.

She is not able to walk and suffers from vomiting, but is able to talk and in stable condition. It is possible that if the bleeding does not subside, however, she may need complicated surgery to drain the blood.

Lymor is currently in a stable condition at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. He was taken in for immediate surgery, which took 3 hours, and a rubber bullet as well as shards of bone and damaged brain tissue were removed from his head and an internal hemorrhage was stopped. It is likely that he will need several more surgeries to correct his vision, and at this point it seems the only brain damage he has incurred affects his sight.

Bil'in village has held protests at least once a week since January 2005 against the separation wall that cuts through the village, and almost every week non-violent protestors are injured by the military's violent repression of their demonstrations.

Israel marketed disengagement to Americans as a step toward peace, but Palestinians remembered the October 2004 comment of Dov Weisglass, adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: "The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."

Why would Israeli politicians subvert negotiations with Palestinians? Perhaps because no Palestinian leader could agree to Israel's planned takeover of Jerusalem and much of the West Bank.

Thus, the Gaza "disengagement" plan is also the Jerusalem and West Bank "expansion" plan. The number of Israelis settling in the West Bank this year exceeds the number withdrawn from Gaza.

Further conflict, therefore, was inevitable.

Moreover, while Israel decolonized Gaza, its military occupation continues. Israel still controls the entry and exit of people and goods into the region, patrols its coast and airspace, oversees its water, fuel, electric utilities, and sewage, and enters it with military forces at will. Under international law, "effective control" determines whether a territory is occupied.

Since the January Palestinian elections, hailed as the fairest in the Arab world, Israel has strived to undermine the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, withholding $50 million to $60 million monthly in tax revenues owed to the authority. The U.S. and European Union have followed, halting aid to the Palestinians until the Hamas government renounces violence, recognizes Israel and pledges to honor prior agreements of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has not yet bowed but has repeatedly signaled willingness to negotiate.

Of course Hamas should not just halt violence -- it had suspended military operations for 17 months, until June -- it should also renounce it. But shouldn't the same standard apply to both parties? Shouldn't recognition and respect for prior agreements be reciprocally required of Israel, which denies Palestinian national rights and regularly violates the Oslo accords?

Palestinian civil servants have gone without salaries since January. Gazans have suffered serious deterioration in nutrition and health. The special U.N. rapporteur on conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories warned in June of an impending humanitarian crisis, saying, "In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions -- the first time that an occupied people have been so treated."

On June 24, Israeli troops entered Gaza and abducted Dr. Osama Muantar and his brother, Mustafa, alleging they were members of Hamas. The two joined some 9,000 Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. Many have not been charged with a crime and more than 100 are minors.

The following day, Palestinian groups attacked an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and capturing a third.

Since then, Israel has laid siege to the Gaza Strip, closing it to travel and trade and abducting 64 Hamas officials, including Cabinet ministers and parliamentary representatives. Its jets have bombed roads, bridges, government buildings, Gaza's main electrical generating plant, homes, fields, orchards, workshops, and offices. To date, 184 Palestinians have been killed, including 42 children, while another 650 have been wounded.

In 1982, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula as part of a comprehensive peace agreement with Egypt. Twenty-four years of peace on that border followed. But unilateral redeployments that only shift the character of Israeli control over Palestinian lives will never yield such results. Unilateralism -- wherein the legitimate interests of the other party are ignored -- is the flaw, not withdrawal.

Would Americans remain quiescent if a neighboring power sealed our borders and airspace, suffocated our economy, expanded into our most desirable lands and attempted to throttle our democratically elected government?

We should counsel Israel to abandon unilateralism and unremitting violence against civilians. Negotiations based on respect for international law and equal rights offer the only way to lasting peace.

George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, writes frequently on the Middle East. His e-mail is bisharat@uchastings.edu.

According to a source of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee, the order was issued by what is called "Deputy Chair of the highest planning committee in ."

The order number 20-T/901 includes wide areas of land close to a highway 60, a bypass road used mainly by Israeli settlers.

Road 60 was built after Oslo agreement was implemented to allow Jewish settlers to travel to and from their settlements without going through Palestinian cities. This road, however is entirely built on land confiscated from Palestinian farmers.

Israeli sources said a warning announcement was published allowing Palestinians farmers two months to petition to the Israeli high court of justice against confiscating their land.

Sources at the municipality of Halhoul said they never managed to stop from confiscating land even if they go to court. The source added that this latest order will allow the army to expropriate 90 acres which brings the area of the confiscated land from the town up to 700 acres, of the best farm land in the town.

On the other hand, the military order will expropriate 175 acres In Beit Ummar, raising the total of the confiscated area to 1500 acres, most of it is agricultural land.

It is likely that this expropreiated land will be used to expand the Gush Etzion settlement bloc which is located on the northern part of Hebron district.

Israel plans to annex the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which is built on expropriated Palestinian land, into Israel in a final agreement with the Palestinians.

Hizbollah has not said where the funds are coming from to compensate people from an estimated 15,000 destroyed homes. The scheme appears likely to cost at least $150 million. The Lebanese government has yet to launch anything similar.

Trying to bolster a five-day-old truce, Lebanese troops moved deeper into south Lebanon a day after France dealt a blow to hopes of building a strong U.N. force to help the army take control of the region as Israeli troops withdraw.

The United Nations said it had received substantial offers of troops for Lebanon, but was disappointed that France was only offering to send 200 additional soldiers.

"We had hoped - we make no secret of it - that there would be a stronger French contribution," said U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown.

International and Lebanese government aid efforts risk being overshadowed by Hizbollah's swift action on reconstruction.
Hizbollah said it had so far given the one-time cash payment to 120 families whose homes in the southern suburbs of Beirut were destroyed in Israeli air strikes. The money is to help families rent and furnish alternative accommodation.

"We have full information on all the buildings that have been destroyed or damaged," said a Hizbollah official at one of 12 assistance centers the group has set up in the suburbs.

"Later on, we will either pay for new flats or rebuild the buildings that were destroyed."

Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised the compensation in his first speech after the truce took hold.


PAINFUL EXPERIENCE

France's reticence to contribute more troops follows disastrous peacekeeping missions in the past. It lost 58 paratroopers to a Shi'ite suicide bomb attack in Beirut in 1983 and some 84 soldiers in Bosnia in the early 1990s.

"I'd like to remind you of the experience of painful operations where U.N. forces did not have a sufficiently precise mission or the means to react," French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told RTL radio.

The Italian government formally approved the deployment of troops to Lebanon. It did not say how many would be sent, but officials have said Italy was ready to offer up to 3,000 troops.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Italy wanted to contribute, but that the mission must have clear rules of engagement.
The Lebanese army began deploying south of the Litani River, about 20 km (13 miles) from the border with Israel, on Thursday.

A senior security source said about 4,500 Lebanese troops were already south of the Litani and more units were joining them on Friday as the force builds up to an eventual 15,000.

Some troops reached the village of Shebaa, near the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms enclave, a key source of tension between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas before the recent war.

Hizbollah fighters have melted away as the Lebanese army arrives, but they have not left the south or given up the rocket launchers they used to bombard Israel during the conflict.


Malloch Brown said Hizbollah's disarmament required an agreement between the group and the Lebanese government.

At least 1,181 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis were killed in the conflict that erupted after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. (Ed: Israel crossed into Lebanon resulting in the capture of the two Israeli soldiers)