Special report: Israel-Lebanon Conflicts  [Video ] [Gallery]

    JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Israeli army's Deputy Chief of General Staff Moshe Kaplinsky said on Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would maintain several outposts in Lebanon even after it withdraws from the area.

    Kaplinsky said in an interview with Israel's Army Radio that the presence would be maintained without physical forces in the field.

    With the fore mentioned military presence, he said that Israel would not need to run away if fighting in this area breaks out again.

    "We'll know how to deal with it, our job is to facilitate the conditions for a cease-fire agreement to take hold in the field." said Kaplinsky, adding that, "the IDF needs to hold on to the places it currently has, since its job is to protect the residents of the North."

    Kaplinsky said IDF's presence in Lebanon would last another several weeks. "Not a year, and not months," he said. "We will leave when the Lebanese government takes responsibility for what happened in the south of the country."

    The 34-day long Israeli-Lebanese conflict ended on Monday morning, after the UN resolution No. 1701 was adopted by the governments of Israel and Lebanon respectively.

    Meanwhile, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Wednesday that the IDF would halt its withdrawal from southern Lebanon if the Lebanese army did not deploy in the area within days.

    Halutz also told Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that if the Lebanese army does not move down within a number of days to the south, Israel must stop the withdrawal. Enditem