Lieutenant Federico Mariani, a spokesman for the Italian troops, told AFP the soldiers would carry out reconnaissance before the full contingent of some 800 commandos was ferried ashore from five ships anchored off the coast.

He said rough sea conditions were slowing down the operation which could last well into Sunday.

By late afternoon, 10 amphibious vehicles had come onshore and nearly half the contingent had been deployed, mostly by helicopter, Mariani said.

An Italian ship was also unloading vehicles and equipment further south in the port town of Naqura, where the UNIFIL mission is headquartered. An additional 200 Italian soldiers were due in the capital Beirut on Sunday.

"We are not expecting any problems as we are here on a peace mission," Mariani said.

The French commander of UNIFIL, Major General Alain Pellegrini, said the new UN force known as UNIFIL II would mark a fresh start for the longstanding peacekeeping mission.

"We have to forget the previous UNIFIL, the previous UNIFIL is dead and the new one ... is strengthened with stronger rules of engagement," he told reporters in Tyre.

"We have more people, more equipment and we will have more possibility to use force to implement our mission," he added.

Pellegrini said the Italian contingent will be based in the Tyre area.

Local officials said a public garden located in a nature reserve on the outskirts of Tyre had been made available to the contingent to use as a base.

One local fisherman watching the Italian troop landing welcomed their arrival, saying he hoped it would help shore up the truce now nearing three weeks old.

"We are desperate and we are looking for any type of peace," said Jaafar Nassar, 28.

Italy aimed to deploy 2,450 ground soldiers in two phases spread over four months, creating the largest contingent in the expanded UNIFIL force of up to 15,000 troops foreseen by the UN truce resolution that took effect on August 14.

Another 15,000 Lebanese troops began deploying in the south last month.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ended 34 days of devastating conflict that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, overwhelmingly civilians, and at least 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

The UNIFIL force was first deployed to south Lebanon following an Israeli invasion in 1978. Before the reinforcements, it had just under 2,000 soldiers.

Resolution 1701 has strengthened UNIFIL's mandate.

Aside from monitoring the truce, the peacekeepers are to support the Lebanese army as it deploys to the international border while Israeli forces withdraw from territory they occupied during the month-long war.

The resolution also calls on UNIFIL to assist the Lebanese military in taking steps toward the disarmament of armed groups.

Pellegrini reiterated Saturday that UN troops would not seek to disarm Hezbollah.

"That is not my job," he said. "This is the job of the Lebanese army and we are here to assist the Lebanese army to do this job.

The first UNIFIL reinforcements -- 200 French military engineers -- arrived earlier this month.

European nations have pledged 7,000 troops, including 2,000 from France, which will lead the UN force until February when Italy will take over.

The Spanish government on Friday authorized the dispatch of 1,100 soldiers subject to parliamentary approval.

Germany will decide next week to commit up to 3,000 sea and air troops to UNIFIL II, but not land-based forces, Monday's edition of the German magazine Focus reports.

Indonesia is to send up to 1,000 men after Israel dropped objections to participation by the world's largest Muslim nation.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said he had been assured Israel would lift its air and sea blockade within a week, during a meeting with UN special envoy Geir Pedersen.

"We have received assurance from Mr. Pedersen that the blockade would be lifted in the coming days or within a week, the Israeli government is meeting tomorrow (Sunday) and a decision could be taken along those lines," Murr told journalists.

Israel has imposed a debilitating blockade of Lebanon since launching an offensive against Hezbollah militants on July 12.

Germany to send 'up to 3,000' troops to Lebanon: report

Berlin (AFP) Sept 2 - Germany will decide next week to commit up to 3,000 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Monday's edition of the German magazine Focus reports.

The magazine says the upper limit of 3,000 is designed to allow maximum flexibility to the proposed German contingent, which will be restricted to sea and air troops.

The German government is due to meet on Monday morning for an extraordinary session to discuss the country's contribution to the expanded UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Focus says, without naming its sources. The final decision will be taken during the week.

The defense ministry Saturday said it will announce Sunday afternoon the number of troops Berlin intends to send to the Middle East.

"We will act as soon as Lebanon makes its request," a ministry spokesman, Thomas Raabe, told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag which publishes on Sunday. He refused to speculate on the number of German soldiers to be deployed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has for weeks been saying Germany will not send ground troops to eliminate the risk of clashes with Israeli soldiers, which remains a fraught issue because of the country's Nazi past.

However, Germany could take command of the maritime mission charged with intercepting the delivery of arms destined for the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

Sources close to the government said it has already decided to send a 1,200-strong naval force as well as between 200 and 300 military medics.

Saturday's edition of the daily newspaper Tagesspiel reports that the figure will be closer to 2,000 troops with 800 soldiers from the Luftwaffe, Germany's air force, expected to be used for reconnaissance missions.

The paper also reports that the government could contribute two warships, up to four torpedo launchers and six Tornado combat planes.

Hope and despair in the rubble of Lebanon's Bint Jbeil

Bint Jbeil, Lebanon (AFP) Sept 1 - Hope and despair coexist in the rubble of Bint Jbeil, the southern Lebanese town that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia.

"Of course it will rebuild, sooner or later," says Ali Hassan Bazzi, 45, who stopped by the damaged shop of his friend Mohammed Bazzi, 32.

"From who?" the younger Bazzi, no direct relation, responds sceptically.

"From the government, from the Arab countries," his friend answers.

As donor countries meeting in Stockholm on Thursday pledged more than 900 million dollars (703.7 million euros) for the immediate reconstruction of Lebanon, Bint Jbeil epitomizes the enormity of the task.

The town was the main centre in southeastern Lebanon. It had a population of 45,000 before the war that began on July 12 when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid.

Now it looks as though the best thing to do would be to bulldoze what is left of Bint Jbeil, and start again.

"People need houses," says Ghassan Idris, 43, who returned from the capital Beirut to check on the remains of his home on the edge of town. The house was destroyed by five bombs, he says.

Zaina Maki, a kindly-looking short woman with a round face, points out the crumbled remains of her three-storey home.

"What shall we do?" she asks. "What shall we do?"

Maki is staying half a block away with a friend, Fatima Baidun, whose home escaped relatively undamaged. They say they have no water, no power and no food.

"UNICEF gave us biscuits," Maki says, laughing.

Told about the Stockholm conference that raised money for shelter, medical care, infrastructure repair, and removal of unexploded ordnance in Lebanon, Maki says, "Thank you very much."

Bint Jbeil was a Hezbollah stronghold and the scene of a battle that left nine Isreali soldiers dead in the area on July 26.

"C'est la victoire du sang," a yellow Hezbollah banner says in French. "It's the victory of blood."

While some men in Bint Jbeil talk at length about Hezbollah's battlefield exploits, Mohammed Bazzi has no time for either of the war's combatants.

"I'm not with nobody. I want to live," says Bazzi.

Much of the merchandise has fallen onto the floor of his electronics and hardware store, leaving him little room to move. The wall is peppered with shrapnel damage.

"I have nothing left," he says. "I'm not Hezbollah. Why do they have to do that to me?"

Like many Bint Jbeil residents, he has lived in the United States.

"I came here after 18 years living in the US... I built a new house. I got married. I opened a new shop selling electronics, radios and so on, and this is what happened."

Bazzi, who lost his house, two cars and a pickup truck in the war, says Hezbollah promised him 10,000 dollars to build a new home but he has not received any money from the militia and is destitute.

"I got no money. This is all I got, five dollars," Bazzi says pulling a few Lebanese pounds from his pocket. "Nobody gives you food. Nobody gives you water."

His friend Ali Hassan Bazzi, said he had received 2,600 dollars, but he would not say from which organization.

A taxi driver and part-time photographer, he said his car was destroyed during the war.

"So now I cannot work."

"Nobody has work," Mohammed Bazzi added.

Ali Hassan Bazzi was optimistic that aid and reconstruction is on its way.

"There is help, but not now... next week, maybe."

Signs of a tentative recovery were already there.

Workers from the local electricity company were repairing cables on the road where Zaina Maki lived. A backhoe drove along one of the dusty streets of collapsed buildings. A truck from the Saudi Red Crescent Society carried boxes of water.

"As you can see, there is a lot of damage but the people are strong and the people have a lot of courage," said Ahmad Baidun, 50, fixing his tiny electronics repair shop.

"Now there is no water or electricity but they are trying." Like the Bazzis, Baiduns are another extended family in Bint Jbeil.

Mohammed Kassem Harajlee, 35, reopened his barber shop about three days ago.

"A lot of customers have come because for a long time nobody cut their hair," says a man getting his grey hair trimmed. A Lebanese American, he declines to give his name.

Bint Jbeil can be rebuilt, he says.

"But it's gonna take a long time. All the countries are gonna help Lebanon."

Residents talk of a pledge by gas-rich Qatar to rebuild the town and repair damaged public utilities.

On Thursday, the weekly street market was underway for the first time since a ceasefire on August 14.

Merchants offering shoes, caps, towels, watches, and Hezbollah memorabilia, set up in the middle of a road as they had before the war.

They got only "a little bit" of business, said one vendor, Hussein Dimascus, but it was a start.

"We want to return to normal life," said his companion, Mohammed Abdullah.

While the market area in hilly Bint Jbeil's upper section showed some signs of renewed life, the lower town was largely empty. Old stone buildings had collapsed violently into the narrow streets. Cars were upturned and hurled against the debris as if a tsunami had swept through.

A hole had been blown into the side of a mosque.

The wind rattled metal shutters on buildings still standing but punctured with holes like Swiss cheese.

"How could you live with no other shops next to you? How could you live with no electricity, with nobody to help you?" asks Mohammed Bazzi, who seems on the verge of tears.

He vows to return to America and never come back but then, a little bit of hope seeps through his despair and he says, more quietly: "God will give a new life. We'll start again."

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