BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon said Saturday that it had been informed by UN peacekeepers that Israel was finally poised to complete its promised pullout from the south, weeks after a UN Security Council truce resolution came into force on August 14.

Israeli military units deployed in southern Lebanon began withdrawing from the area overnight as part of a plan for the army to fully withdraw from the northern neighbor, an AFP journalist said in Israel.

Bulldozers and other heavy engineering equipment were being transported back by road to Israel.

A Lebanese government spokesman said the French commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), General Alain Pellegrini, had told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that Israel would pull out the last of its troops on Sunday.

"General Pellegrini contacted Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to inform him that the Israeli army has undertaken to complete its withdrawal from south Lebanon on Sunday," the spokesman said.

In Jerusalem, public radio reported that Defense Minister Amir Peretz had given a green light for the estimated several hundred Israeli soldiers remaining in south Lebanon to withdraw on Sunday.

Earlier an Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that the army planned to withdraw from more positions in south Lebanon on Sunday but declined to say whether that would mark the completion of its pullout.

"We are going to hand over control of several sectors to UNIFIL," the spokeswoman said.

But challenged whether the army planned to hand over control of all the sectors it still controls, she said: "We can't give out those sorts of operational details for security reasons."

Israel's privately owned Channel Two television had also reported Friday that the army would complete its pullout by Sunday afternoon at the latest -- before the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday.

The television said that army chiefs no longer saw any reason to keep the few hundred Israeli troops still deployed in Lebanon in place.

The Lebanese premier also spoke with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by telephone during the night to seek her assistance in getting Israel to pull out its remaining troops, the spokesman added.

Siniora asked Rice, who begins a Middle East tour Monday, to "put pressure on Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701," the spokesman said.

Lebanon has stepped up its protests about the slow pace of Israel's withdrawal in recent days, warning that it is considering a formal protest to the Security Council.

"The Lebanese government is looking into filing a complaint with the Security Council over Israel's violations of, and failure to comply with, the terms of Resolution 1701," a senior army commander in Beirut charged Thursday.

Resolution 1701 put an end to 34 days of devastating conflict between Israel and Shiite militants of Hezbollah and called for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in tandem with the deployment of Lebanese government troops and additional UN peacekeepers, as well as the disarming of all militias.

The Israeli army still occupies about 10 positions on the Lebanese side of the border, after suspending its pullout earlier this month, according to UNIFIL.

Disputes over how the Lebanese army and UNIFIL peacekeepers will deal with Hezbollah fighters have been holding up the withdrawal, Israeli army chief Dan Halutz said Wednesday.

Hezbollah has agreed to abide by the ceasefire but refuses to lay down its weapons until it is satisfied that Israel has ended its occupation of Lebanese land.

Meanwhile a government minister said Israel should "liquidate" Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as soon as possible.

"We must liquidate Nasrallah at the first opportunity, because he is the embodiment of evil, not just for us but for Muslims and Christians too," Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, a former defence minister, told army radio.

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