KAFR KILA, Lebanon - United Nations peacekeepers asked Israel's army on Wednesday to pull down a new barbed-wire barrier that Lebanon says encroaches on its territory. However, Israel denied that the fence was on Lebanese soil.

Meanwhile, the handover of south Lebanon continued, with Lebanese troops taking control of a large border zone for the first time in three decades. Israel, whose forces in Lebanon now number a few thousand, said on Friday that it expected to pull all of its troops out within two weeks.

UN peacekeepers inspected the disputed barrier - two coils of barbed-wire that Lebanon says were unfurled some 15 meters inside Lebanon, just across from the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora protested the encroachment, and a spokesman for the UN mission in Lebanon said that the peacekeeping force had asked Israel's army to remove the barrier.

But the Israeli military said that it was repairing the fence along the route set down in a 2000 UN resolution. The fence is not inside Lebanese territory, it said, so there is no reason to remove it.

At the border, a new dirt track controlled by Israelis could be seen running between the tall border fence and the barbed-wire coils laid inside a field.

"The Israeli soldiers moved in and began unfurling their wire in the middle of my land," said farmer Mahmoud Sheikh. He said that the incident occurred three days ago, and that the troops had waved him off as he tried to intervene.

New barriers have been put up in several places, including the Khiam plain and the town of Ghajar. The barriers enclose an area about 15 meters deep and three kilometers wide, Lebanese Army and UN officials said.

Some 10 kilometers away from the contested stretch of fence, Lebanese soldiers in a long column of old jeeps and armored vehicles took control of a 200-square-kilometer zone around Houla, near the border, for the first time in decades.

Children clapped their hands, women threw rice and men waved yellow Hezbollah baseball caps to greet some 300 soldiers. A Lebanese officer commanding the deployment said that because the army has not been in the zone for decades, "we've been studying maps and aerial photographs to find our way."

"We're overjoyed to have them all here," said the mayor of Minni Hayam, Salah Jaber. "Finally, the sovereignty of Lebanon is restored here."

Also Wednesday, some 175 French soldiers landed in Lebanon, bringing the number of UN peacekeepers to nearly 3,750.

Under the UN resolution that ended the conflict, 15,000 UN peacekeepers are to secure a buffer zone with Israel in south Lebanon, supporting an equal number of Lebanese troops.

The resolution also calls for disarming Hezbollah. But most soldiers being deployed in the south are conscripts, who are deemed no match for the highly trained guerrillas, and many also say they support Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah are our brothers," said Assem Shouri, a soldier deployed in the southern town of Tibnine. "If ever there's a problem with Israel and I'm asked to disarm them, I'd leave the army and join Hezbollah."

In Berlin, Germany's cabinet approved the deployment of warships to the eastern Mediterranean as part of the peacekeeping force. Parliament, which must also approve the deployment of up to 2,400 navy personnel, is to vote on it next week. (AP)