By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers may at some point resort to force to prevent repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace, the commander of the U.N. force in southern Lebanon said on Thursday. But to do so would require the United Nations to rewrite its rules of engagement for its troops, Major-General Alain Pellegrini of France told a news conference. Pellegrini also said his 7,200-strong force had seen no evidence of illegal arms -- whether in Hezbollah hands or smuggled in from Syria -- since moving into southern Lebanon to enforce an Aug. 14 cease-fire ending a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Asked about regular U.N. reports of violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli military aircraft, he said these had declined recently but remained a problem "and are not to be accepted." "At the moment we have not other means to prevent this kind of violation beyond dialogue and diplomatic ways," he said. But if diplomacy was not enough, "maybe it could be considered other ways." While anti-aircraft missiles deployed by the French contingent of the U.N. force were now reserved solely for self-defense, this could change if the rules of engagement were revised, he said. "It could be. It could be," he said. "This has to be considered." NO MOVE TO REWRITE RULES U.N. officials hastened to add that there was no move under way for now to rewrite the rules of engagement. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman said he could not believe Pellegrini would make such a statement. Lebanon's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric said this week that U.N. peacekeepers were doing little to stop Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty and urged the Lebanese to treat the force with caution. It appeared the U.N. troops had come to protect Israel and not Lebanon, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in a statement. Israel, for its part, has accused the U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, of doing nothing to disarm Hezbollah guerrillas in its and failing to prevent arms from being smuggled from neighboring Syria. But Pellegrini said only U.N. and Lebanese soldiers were legally allowed to have arms in the area. "We have not spotted any illegal weapons" since arriving, he said. UNIFIL's area of operations is bordered by the Litani River to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and to the south by the "Blue Line" marking the Israel-Lebanon border. Pellegrini said he also knew of no arms smuggling. "I think all these moves fell off" after large numbers of UNIFIL and Lebanese troops moved in, he said. The Lebanese troops working with UNIFIL were "well deployed along the border (with Syria) and they are doing a marvelous job," he said. While the U.N. force was authorized by the Security Council to grow to as many as 15,000 troops, probably only 10,000 were needed for now, working with more than 10,000 Lebanese soldiers, he said.
