On this day: Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon

As the last troops left, he said: "Now, we have done something. We have the reins in our hands."

Hizbollah met Israel's departure with typical cheer, staging a demonstration for tens of thousands of supporters. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah also pledged to remove his organisation from southern Lebanon in the wake of the Israeli move – a promise which when Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were reported missing in July 2006 was proven to be simply empty words.

What the JC said: The nightmare, said one soldier as Israel completed its retreat from southern Lebanon, is over. Sadly, given the past quarter-of-a-century of bloodletting in southern Lebanon, that may prove too hasty a judgment. But there is, at long last, reason to hope Israel's part in a long tragedy of errors may be drawing to a close…Mr Barak, for his part, remarked this week that "there are no easy withdrawals". But there is no reason to believe that a withdrawal delayed would have been any easier. Je was right finally to pull Israeli forces out of Lebanon.

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