Israel pullback alarms Lebanon border town

(Reuters) - Israel said on Wednesday it would withdraw troops from a village straddling the Lebanese border, in a gesture to the United Nations that drew residents onto the streets protesting the division of their community.

The people of Ghajar, a prosperous hillside town of 2,300 who are members of Syria's Alawite sect, say they want no "Berlin Wall" dividing the north from the south of their village and forcing them to chose between Lebanon or Israel.

They say they were not consulted on U.N. plans to resolve a situation that has long inflamed tensions between Israel, the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group and neighboring Syria.

"We don't know what's going to happen when the Israelis pull back. We're afraid the village will be cut in two, and in Ghajar we're all one big family," said local council head Ahmed Fatali.

Israel captured Ghajar, along with the Golan Heights which it abuts, from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. A later U.N. demarcation of Lebanese territory took in northern Ghajar, leaving the southern part under Israeli control. The villagers took Israeli citizenship in 1981, but see themselves as Syrians.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AG31N20101117