Instead, its military commanders were left humiliated and its troops stranded as Hezbollah told them not to try to disarm its fighters.

The first infantry units were preparing to head south yesterday when Hezbollah demonstrated who exercised the real control by announcing that it had no intention of surrendering a single weapon. General Michel Sleiman, the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese Army, and his lieutenants had been invited to join in Cabinet meetings to finalise plans to deploy their 15,000-strong force in a buffer zone south of the Litani river. However, they ended up being lectured by Hezbollah’s two Cabinet ministers in the coalition Government on what the army could and could not do.

In Beirut, Western diplomats said that it raised serious concerns about the army’s ability and appetite to deal with Hezbollah. The Lebanese Government was left struggling to maintain a united front after unanimously backing the UN resolution on Saturday.

Sami Haddad, the Economics Minister, said: “The Government can’t force Hezbollah to abide by the ceasefire. It’s unnatural to have an armed political party that is in Cabinet and does not abide by what the Government of Lebanon wants.”

Nabih Berri, the Speaker of parliament and the Shia politician best placed to negotiate with Hezbollah, asked for 48 hours to broker a deal.

Without Lebanese troops or the international force in place in the intended demilitarised zone, there is little serious prospect of the ceasefire holding for long.

The stand-off came soon after Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said on Hezbollah’s television network that his fighters would respect the ceasefire and described the deployment of Lebanese and foreign troops as “an honourable move”. He said that the deployment was “an achievement for Hezbollah and the Lebanon. It resulted from the steadfastness of the Lebanese people and the heroes of the resistance.”

There were even optimistic murmurs about trying to integrate Hezbollah fighters into the army. But Hezbollah appear to have decided that the demand that it disarm and leave the 20km (12-mile) “arms-free zone” would have portrayed it as losers in the conflict.

The army has lost 20 men, despite not firing a shot in anger. Two more soldiers were wounded yesterday near the Syrian border when an Israeli airstrike hit their 4x4.

Elias Murr, the Defence Minister, said in the early days of the conflict: “We will defend our land until the last soldier, and we will pay any price for our land.”

Yet troops retreated to their barracks or lounged on armoured vehicles in the shade in a token effort to police checkpoints in the capital or protect key buildings.

President Lahoud admitted to a senior official last week: “If we had ordered our army to fight, they would have been wiped out.”

Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general, told The Times: “Sending 15,000 troops south is a political solution, not a military one. It’s more a PR stunt. The army needs the international force to help it. The key objective is to keep the army united, and not have it split on factional lines as it did in the civil war.” The force’s equipment is poor, and certainly no match for the Israelis, and it has neither an air force nor a navy.

One soldier told The Times that Hezbollah was better armed and organised, adding that he was reluctant to confront what he called “the resistance fighters”.

A colleague added: “We want to be able to go anywhere we want in Lebanon and be the only force inside our borders carrying guns. What we don’t know is when we will be able to do that.”

Another said that his brother and a cousin were fighting for Hezbollah. His cousin was injured last week and moved to a Hezbollah clinic in a secret location. The soldier said: “I can't turn a gun on the resistance, because they are family.”

A MONTH AT WAR

1,089 people killed in Lebanon

144 Israelis (including 104 soldiers) killed

4,000 Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel

27 number of days the Lebanese town of Tyre has been attacked since fighting began

400 number of towns and villages attacked — 50 in Israel, at least 350 in Lebanon

£2.8bn estimated cost of conflict to Israel (Haaretz newspaper)

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