Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Lebanon will start to deploy government troops to the south of the country tomorrow in the first stage of a plan to position a peacekeeping force between Israel and Hezbollah, a government spokesman said.

The Lebanese council of ministers late today decided to send the army south of the Litani River and into the towns of Arqoub, Hasbaya and Marjayoun. The deployment is aimed at prohibiting ``the existence of any outside authority except for the authority of the Lebanese state,'' according to a statement read by Information Minister Ghazi Aridi in Beirut.

Hezbollah has agreed that the Lebanese soldiers can take possession of any weapon that is ``found'' in the area, the Associated Press cited Aridi as saying. A United Nations resolution passed last week demands that the border area be free of militias and their arms.

Lebanon is supposed to take control of the region with the help of UN peacekeeping troops to solidify a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that began this week.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on television late today that her country is ready to command the expanded UN force until February, Agence France-Presse reported. A French general heads the existing UN contingent in Lebanon.

``The real question is whether the international community has the ability to implement its own goals,'' Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in New York after meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. ``The situation is explosive.''

Hezbollah Terror

UN planners want to boost the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or Unifil, by about 3,500 soldiers within two weeks. So far, no country has committed troops. Unifil has been based in southern Lebanon chiefly as observers since 1978.

The UN force is intended to help create a zone free of Hezbollah fighters, who fired more than 3,000 rockets at northern Israeli towns during a month of fighting. Hezbollah, whose name means Party of God, has been linked to scores of terrorist attacks on Israelis and Americans, including rocket assaults on Israeli towns, Beirut bombings in 1983 that killed 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French soldiers, and the 1994 attack that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Litani River

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered troops to penetrate southern Lebanon as far as the Litani. The military declined to say how far it advanced before the cease-fire began. Soldiers, who began leaving southern Lebanon yesterday, continued to withdraw today, said an Israeli military spokesman, who declined to be identified under army regulations.

Israel's military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israeli soldiers might remain in southern Lebanon for months until the UN force is fully deployed, Israel Army radio reported.

``We believe that would be a big mistake'' Mohammad Chatah, an adviser to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, told CNN when asked to respond to such reports.

``That is not our understanding'' of the UN resolution, Chatah said.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urged Israel to lift its air and sea blockade to allow ``reconstruction and resumption of economic activity.'' At a televised press conference, the French minister asked for the early deployment of peacekeepers to enable Israel to withdraw. France administered Lebanon under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1943.

Going Home

The UN said 200,000 Lebanese have returned to their homes in the past three days, including 60,000 from Syria, leaving 700,000 still internally displaced. As many as 15,000 homes were destroyed in the fighting, according to the world body.

Two truck convoys carrying humanitarian supplies left Beirut this morning, heading to Tyre and a camp for Palestinian refugees in Baalbeck. The UN said electricity might be restored to Tyre, a city of about 100,000, as early as tonight.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the expanded Unifil will support efforts by the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah, though ``I don't think there is an expectation that this force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah'' itself.

The Shiite Muslim group may be ``disarmed by a plan under political agreement and then support can be given to the Lebanese,'' Rice told USA Today yesterday, according to a State Department transcript of her interview.

Abducted Israelis

The conflict, which began after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack on July 12, left about 1,200 Lebanese dead and 4,500 wounded, Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said today. Olmert said 159 Israelis were killed. It cost the Israeli economy at least $1.6 billion, according to Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson, and Lebanon's economy as much as $7 billion, according to Fatfat.

Olmert's job-approval rating dropped to 40 percent compared with 78 percent on July 19, a week after hostilities erupted, according to a poll published in Ma'ariv today. More than two- thirds, or 67 percent, of people surveyed said there should be an official investigation into the way the war was handled.

Hezbollah, which the U.S. and Israel designate as a terrorist organization, controls forces independent of Lebanon's army. The group has 14 seats in Lebanon's 128-member Parliament and two members in the cabinet. While participating in politics, Hezbollah has defied UN Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming and disbanding of militias in Lebanon.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dania Saadi in Beirut at dsaadi2@bloomberg.net Janine Zacharia in Jerusalem at jzacharia@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 16, 2006 15:01 EDT