A Vengeful Three-Sided War

By Marguerite Johnson

Another paroxysm of violence--and a Palestinian shift

It was a clear and balmy morning. For once, Lebanon's guns had fallen silent. The Easter message of peace and Resurrection was delivered from countless Christian pulpits across the land. The Voice of Hope, the radio station that supports Major Sa'ad Haddad, the leader of the Israeli-supported Christian militia in southern Lebanon, went on the air with readings from the Gospels.

In the biblical port of Sidon, a Palestinian stronghold and occasional target of Haddad attacks, hundreds of townspeople had gathered in the squares to enjoy the holiday. Suddenly, at noon, the festive air was broken by a thunderous barrage of artillery fire. Within minutes, 16 shells exploded in the center of the city, blasting cafes, an amusement hall and a Maronite Christian church. Among the dead were 16 backgammon players in a local cafe. One survivor was seen running along the road screaming, as he carried the severed torso of a youth.

The Easter Massacre, as it was soon called, was Haddad's revenge for the deaths of three of his militiamen, who had been killed by Palestinian land mines. The brutal attack proved to be only the beginning of yet another paroxysm of violence in war-ravaged Lebanon last week. That same afternoon, Israeli fighter-bombers were hammering Palestinian positions in and around Beaufort Castle, the old Crusader ruin on the Litani River, five miles across the Lebanese border. Palestinian units responded with Katyusha rocket attacks against villages that straddle the Israeli-Lebanese border. Artillery duels broke out again between Syrian troops of the Arab Deterrent Force and right-wing Christian militiamen in Beirut and in the eastern city of Zahle, ending a tenuous two-week ceasefire.

The intensified fighting thus blazed into a three-cornered war, with a distinct and tangled conflict at each angle:

Beirut. Since the end of the civil war in 1976, the capital has been effectively divided into predominantly Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut. Last week artillery and rocket fire exploded all along the Green Line, which divides the two sectors, then spread throughout the city and north 13 miles to the port of Jounieh. Beirut airport was closed after intensive shelling damaged runways and installations. The heaviest fighting occurred between Syrian troops and Christian militiamen, but there were also incidents of Lebanese army units, commanded by Christian officers, opening fire on Syrian soldiers in defiance of their orders.

Zahle. Heavy fighting first broke out in the city three weeks ago, 125 miles east of Beirut, when the Syrians discovered Christian militia building fortifications in the surrounding hills. The city is adjacent to the strategic Damascus-to-Beirut high way. Last week the city's 200,000 residents scrambled to their cellars again, as new, though milder, artillery clashes resumed.

Southern Lebanon. The region south of the Litani River has traditionally been used by Palestinian guerrillas as a staging area for attacks against northern Israel. Israel, in turn, has thrown its support to Haddad's 2,000-man militia and backed it up with deadly bomber attacks. The United Nations 6,000-man peacekeeping force (UNIFIL), dispatched in 1978 to act as a buffer, has often been caught in the bloodletting. Last week UNIFIL Commander Major General William Callaghan met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to try to get a ceasefire.

Although Lebanon's President Elias Sarkis succeeded late in the week in obtaining yet another cease-fire in Beirut and Zahle, observers saw little hope for any lasting peace. Said a high-ranking U.N. official: "Everybody believes he is fighting for survival. That, coupled with intense emotionalism and the abundance of weaponry in all hands, tends to make the situation totally uncontrollable." A U.S. State Department expert echoed that bleak assessment: "Lebanon has become a cockpit of warfare, mainly because of the non-Lebanese. We have been in touch with all the parties, but we are very pessimistic."

The only favorable turn in an otherwise gloomy week was an indication that the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by the fiery but ailing George Habash, had taken a step toward a more moderate strategy. The P.F.L.P., after a seven-year absence, rejoined the governing executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization at its meeting in Damascus. TIME also learned that Habash, who had previously insisted that all of Israel must revert to a Palestinian state, would now accept "a Palestine" on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip--at least "as a first step." The shift in strategy has not been announced by Habash. It is a quiet arrangement worked out within the P.F.L.P., after a great deal of argument, and later with Arafat.

--By Marguerite Johnson. Reported by David Aikman /Jerusalem and William Stewart/Beirut

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, William Stewart

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