U.N.: Cease-fire begins Monday/Lebanon Cabinet member: Hezbollah won’t disarm in U.N. region

By Hum Bahadur K.C.

The U.N.-brokered cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel will begin at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. ET) Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a taped statement Saturday.

  • The end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah will take effect at 5 a.m. GMT on Monday, the U.N. Secretary-General says
  • Hassan Nasrallah says Hezbollah will back U.N. truce
  • The Lebanese government unanimously approves the Security Council Resolution
  • Hezbollah claims its guerillas shot down an Israeli helicopter
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    12August2006-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that a

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    cease-fire in the Hezbollah- Israel fighting will take effect at 8 a.m. Lebanese time (1 a.m. EDT) Monday. 34   ।   

    Annan said in a statement distributed in Beirut early Sunday that he had been in touch with Prime Ministers Fuad Saniora of Lebanon and Ehud Olmert of Israel to discuss the exact time and date when the cessation of hostilities called for by a U.N. Security Council resolution will enter into force.

    "I am happy to annouce that the two leaders have agreed that the cessation of hostilities and the end of the fighting will enter into force on 14 August, at 0500 hours GMT," the statement said.

    Late Friday, the Security Council on adopted a resolution seeking a "full cessation" of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, offering the region its best chance yet for peace after a month of fighting that has killed more than 800 people and inflamed Mideast tensions.

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    The resolution, adopted unanimously, authorizes 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israeli forces that have occupied the area withdraw.

    Hezbollah’s leader on Saturday grudgingly joined Lebanon’s government in accepting the U.N. resolution but vowed to keep fighting until Israeli troops leave and hand over territory to a muscular U.N. peacekeeping force intended to separate the antagonists.

    Israel also signaled its intention to approve the plan, and a senior official predicted fighting would stop Monday morning, but there was no slowing in the bloodshed.

    More Israeli tanks and soldiers surged into southern Lebanon on Saturday, reaching the Litani River and engaging in some of the heaviest ground combat of the monthlong war.

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