{"id":1537,"date":"2006-08-22T23:46:14","date_gmt":"2006-08-23T04:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1537"},"modified":"2006-08-22T23:47:08","modified_gmt":"2006-08-23T04:47:08","slug":"italy-steps-in-with-lebanon-troop-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1537","title":{"rendered":"Italy Steps in with Lebanon Troop Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bravo for the Italians and their <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/middle_east\/5273188.stm?ls\">willingness to show leadership<\/a> after France unsurprisingly faltered.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Italy has said it would be willing to lead a force to police the ceasefire in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>But Foreign Minister Massimo D&#8217;Alema warned his country could only fulfil its offer if Israel respected the truce, now in its ninth day.<\/p>\n<p>Israel says it shot three suspected Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon late on Monday, although this was denied by the militant group.<\/p>\n<p>The incident shows just how fragile the ceasefire is, correspondents say.<\/p>\n<p>Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said his country was willing to lead the planned international force &#8211; a task that was initially expected to go to France.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Mr D&#8217;Alema said Italy could offer up to 3,000 troops &#8211; the most substantial offer so far.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Italy&#8217;s &#8220;positive role&#8221; has been welcomed by the Lebanese cabinet, Information Minister Gazi Afridi said.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has also said it would be happy if Italy led the force. <\/p>\n<p>UN Resolution 1701 calls for 15,000 troops to be deployed to uphold the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>But some countries have been reluctant to commit troops because they fear their soldiers might get drawn into conflict if they are required to disarm Hezbollah directly.<\/p>\n<p>France had been expected to lead the peacekeeping force, but offered only 200 troops after expressing concern about the lack of a clear mandate.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy UN Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown said he was still hopeful that European countries, including France, would commit more forces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hezbollah was unfazed during the most recent UN deployment, sometimes setting up shop immediately adjacent to UN sites.  Still, with a large chunk of Italians now planned to be in the mix, one must wonder if this will still be the case.  Even the Hezbo terrorists have to have a limit on how much <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2006_FIFA_World_Cup\">World Cup 2006<\/a> bragging can be endured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bravo for the Italians and their willingness to show leadership after France unsurprisingly faltered. Italy has said it would be willing to lead a force to police the ceasefire in southern Lebanon. But Foreign Minister Massimo D&#8217;Alema warned his country could only fulfil its offer if Israel respected the truce, now in its ninth day. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-middle-east","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}