The United Nations is demanding that Israel pull back a little further in some sections of its border from Lebanon, in order to fully comply with UN Resolution 425, following its troop withdrawal from Lebanon last week.
Mr Terje Larsen, despatched to the region by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, held talks devoted to the border issue yesterday with Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, and was meeting last night with Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as work proceeds to demarcate the border line on the ground.
In the interim, with an enlarged UN peacekeeping force yet to be deployed in the newly Israel-free south of Lebanon, and the government in Beirut despatching just a few hundred soldiers and policemen to the area, a dangerous anarchy prevails.
That anarchy yesterday brought the first fatality since Israel pulled its troops out last week, with a Christian man shot dead by a Hizbullah gunman in the village of Rmeish. Christians in the south have expressed fears for their safety now that the pro-Iranian Hizbullah guerrillas, euphoric after forcing Israel out of the country, have taken at least temporary control of some areas vacated by the Israeli troops and their South Lebanon Army allies.
The death of 50-year-old Jerryous al-Hajj, shot in the stomach, appeared to confirm those fears. Two other Rmeish villagers were wounded in the incident. Lebanese government sources said that the gunman was arrested, and Hizbullah spokesmen issued fresh statements of reassurance for the Christians, stressing that its policy was to ensure their wellbeing.
The power vacuum is also being illustrated daily on the border itself, where thousands of Lebanese people, along with groups of Palestinian refugees from camps in Lebanon, gathered again yesterday to wave at, or more frequently taunt and throw stones and even petrol bombs at, the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the wire fences. UN forces have been making rather half-hearted efforts to keep the crowds back, but on at least one occasion yesterday, groups of Lebanese broke through into Israeli territory.
Israeli soldiers fired in the air, and also used rubber bullets several times to push the crowds back, injuring at least three people, including one youth hit in the foot.
Mr Barak ordered soldiers to open fire only to protect "rescue missions" or in self-defence.
Through the melee, Israel is continuing to accept a trickle of refugees from south Lebanon. About 7,000 south Lebanese - most of them members of the collapsed SLA and their families - are now in Israel, and are being moved out of their temporary tent villages into rented homes in Haifa, Tiberias and elsewhere. A few dozen yesterday chose to return to Lebanon, where a reported 1,000 or more SLA members have turned themselves in and await trial.
In a graphic illustration of its unforgiving attitude to the former SLA members, whom it has branded traitors, Hizbullah at the weekend blew up a lavish memorial to 635 dead SLA fighters, at Klea, just across the border from Lebanon, which was only inaugurated in early April.
The Hizbullah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, called again on Israel to withdraw from the Shebaa Farms area - territory on the Syrian border which the UN has ruled does not belong to Lebanon. Mr Barak has demolished two army positions there, but says Israel will not pull out completely. Sheikh Nasrallah also demanded the release of not just Lebanese, but also Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, in return for any information he might have on four Israeli MiAs.
Sheikh Nasrallah has called his movement's success in pushing Israel out of Lebanon a model for the Palestinians to emulate. To Israel's relief, the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, rejected any parallel at the weekend, saying merely that he was "very happy" that Israel had implemented UN Resolution 425, and that he hoped the UN resolutions relating to the Palestinians would also be implemented soon.
Meanwhile, Israel's President, Mr Ezer Weizman, is to resign by July at the latest, following publication of a state prosecutor's report that confirms financial misdealings but finds no grounds to indict him. The president had intended to stay in office until the end of the year, but several Knesset members were planning to start impeachment proceedings against him. Mr Shimon Peres, the former Labour prime minister, is the frontrunner to succeed him.
And Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, the transport minister and head of the Centre Party in Mr Barak's coalition, resigned from the government yesterday. Mr Mordechai is to stand trial for sexual assault.