JERUSALEM, June 19 (UPI) -- The 2006 Second Lebanon War claimed its first high political casualty as Amir Peretz, the Israeli defense minister, stepped down Tuesday, to be replaced by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

It was a quick changeover after Barak won his party's primaries. With the crisis in Gaza continuing and confidence in Peretz falling, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wasted no time in going through the motions of appointing a new minister. He obtained the Cabinet's consent in a telephone poll Friday, and while he was in the United States the Knesset approved Barak's co-option. Tuesday morning the traditional honor guard for new defense ministers awaited him in Tel Aviv.

Peretz thus became the highest-ranking official to lose his job following that war. Earlier, four generals quit.

That leaves in place one person who was at the pinnacle of the decision-making process during the war: Olmert.

In his attempts to defend his record, Olmert argues the 34-day war's results weren't so terrible. In a Knesset debate in May, he was called to explain why he is not resigning. Olmert cited a Hebrew University military historian, Martin van Creveld, who argued the months that passed since the war have been the longest period of quiet Israel experienced along its northern border since 1968.

Sunday afternoon militants disrupted the count. From a field near the Lebanese village of Adeise they fired two Katyusha rockets that exploded in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, damaging a car. A third rocket did not take off.

One knee-jerk Israeli reaction was to criticize U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese Army. The Haaretz newspaper quoted a senior officer in the Northern Command as saying it is about time the U.N. interim force in Lebanon "fulfills its mandate and the Lebanese army assumes responsibility for whatever happens in its area."

However, in Jerusalem, UNIFIL Deputy Force Commander Brig. Gen. J.P. Nehra seemed upbeat about his force's achievements since its complement and mandate have been expanded. Nehra, in a camouflage uniform, maintained there is no foolproof protection against attacks.

What immediately followed the attack highlighted the positive developments that have occurred, he argued. UNIFIL did not know who fired the rockets, but the good news was that apparently it was not Hezbollah.

"We are quite certain they are not the ones behind it," he told United Press International. "Hezbollah immediately came out in the open and denied (involvement). They did not try to take advantage of the ambiguity of the situation." This means they want to continue supporting U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war, he maintained.

Secondly, UNIFIL's liaison and coordination system worked and managed to prevent an escalation. UNIFIL's commander, Maj. Gen. Claudio Graziano, immediately got to senior Israeli officers and assured them UNIFIL was investigating the incident.

The achievement may sound trivial when almost everybody carries a cell phone in his pocket. UNIFIL has a liaison office in Safad, near the Northern Command's headquarters, but so far has failed to get Israeli consent to establish a hotline between the commanders. A U.N. liaison officer recently said at Haifa University it was sometimes difficult to immediately get senior Israeli officers. He suggested the refusal to establish a hotline was designed to give Israel time if it wanted it.

The Lebanese army reacted quickly to the attack, and its men were at the launching site within 10 minutes. A UNIFIL patrol arrived there in 13 minutes, Nehra said.

"This shows our reaction capability. The Lebanese army's intention to keep everything under control," he added.

The war eventually led Lebanese and Israeli officers to finally talk to each another, at least sometimes.

"For many many years the two sides never spoke to each other. This is the first time, at least, they are sitting in one room and speaking in the presence of each other, sometimes even to each other," Nehra said.

The development Olmert stresses is that the Lebanese army is finally able to deploy all the way to the international border. Until the war, Hezbollah controlled the border area.

Nehra noted the Lebanese army enjoys an "extremely supportive" local population. However, the army seems nowhere near an ability to take over, he indicated.

It is very enthusiastic, tries to do its best, but is poorly equipped and trained. Its recent fighting against Fatah al-Islam militants in northern Lebanon showed it was neither equipped nor trained to fight in built-up areas. It ran out of ammunition and required airlifts with foreign supplies.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, kept fighting Israel for 34 days. According to Israeli accounts, it had launched more than 4,000 rockets and there was no sign of a letup.

According to Israeli intelligence, Hezbollah has been rearming itself with weapons smuggled from Lebanon. Yediot Aharonot reporters who accompanied Olmert to New York said he had told U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Hezbollah has repositioned rockets in village houses and aimed them at Israel.

Nehra confirmed the Syrian-Lebanese border, north of the Litani River, is "porous all right. It is very porous. But that is another matter. Our area of operations is south of Litani (river)."

Hezbollah is Shiite, like so many southern Lebanese, and is very popular there, but has no forward presence in UNIFIL's area of operations, Nehra told a conference in Jerusalem. Nor are there any direct attempts to restrict the peacekeepers' freedom of movement. "We have been able to go where we wanted as many times as we wanted," he said.

As for the arms reportedly stashed inside homes, Nehra said UNIFIL enters southern Lebanese villages, "But our mandate is not to search the houses. ... It is the responsibility of the Lebanese army. ... If they request our assistance we will (provide it)," he said. Even so, UNIFIL has been discovering large amounts of arms, ammunition, booby traps, old Katyushas and mobile launchers, but "none of them have shown any signs of being recently used."

Nehra said UNIFIL is very concerned about Israeli overflights, a matter that comes up whenever the peacekeepers meet Lebanese. UNIFIL teams have so far cleared some 25,000 unexploded ordnances, a problem he said would become more acute with time, "when those things get buried."