Escalating the Savagery

By William E. Smith

Israel bombs Beirut, the P.L.O. attacks--and the innocent die

It was 11 a.m. on a bright summer day, when suddenly all of Beirut shook with the roar of bombers and the thunder of antiaircraft artillery. Small puffs of white smoke began to dot the sky as local militia groups fired in vain at the screaming jets. When the fury of the attack finally ended, two hours later, at least 200 people were dead and 600 injured, victims of the first Israeli air raid against the Lebanese capital since 1978. The target of the jets: specific Palestinian offices within the city.

The raid, the latest foray in the increasing warfare between Israeli forces and Palestinians, left Beirut in a state of shock. Lebanon's President Elias Sarkis called for a special session of the U.N. Security Council and summoned the American and Soviet ambassadors for separate talks. In the aftermath of the raid, a new wave of bitterness, directed not only at Israel but at the U.S. as well, swept through the Arab countries of the Middle East. In Beirut, newspapers referred to the attack as "the Apocalypse" and as "a massacre of Lebanese civilians," and described it as the bloodiest air raid against an Arab city in the 33-year history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The main target of the Israeli planes had been the Palestine Liberation Organization's several commando offices in West Beirut. The command centers of two important components of the P.L.O., Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, escaped virtually unscathed, although the headquarters of two smaller groups, the P.F.L.P.-General Command and the Syrian-dominated Saiqa, were partly destroyed. The most serious damage took place in densely crowded areas like the Fakhani district behind the Fatah center, where half a dozen large office and apartment buildings collapsed. Israeli officials said the object of the attack was to go to the source of terrorism, but the principal victims were Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, an almost inescapable consequence of a policy of attacking thickly populated areas.

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes returned to southern Lebanon for the third straight day, once again directing their fire at Palestinian guerrilla strongholds. In the meantime, the P.L.O. announced that it had launched the latest in a series of rocket attacks on northern Israel as a "down payment" on its promised retaliation for the "air massacre" that the Israelis had committed in Beirut. At week's end an alliance of leftist Muslim groups in Lebanon called for the stationing of Soviet-made SA-6 antiaircraft missiles in Beirut. Such a move would challenge Israel's command of the skies over the city; it would also increase the danger of further escalation by one more deadly notch.

The latest round of attack and counterattack had begun a week earlier when Israeli warplanes staged a strike on Palestinian guerrilla targets near the Zahrani River in southern Lebanon, killing three people and wounding 20. Two days later the Israelis struck again, this time hitting a guerrilla base at Damur, ten miles south of Beirut, killing five and injuring 25. After another two-day interval, the Israelis attacked once more, damaging Palestinian and Lebanese leftist bases near the southern town of Nabatiyeh and at Jazzin and Basir in south central Lebanon. Ten were killed and 90 wounded. In a dogfight between Syrian and Israeli jets, the first such encounter in five months, a Syrian MiG was destroyed.

The Israeli Cabinet had been in session for just 40 minutes on Wednesday afternoon when it received the news of the first important retaliatory strike by Palestinians: two northern Israeli towns were under heavy rocket attack. By the time the onslaught ended, almost two hours later, Palestinian guerrillas in southern Lebanon had fired as many as 120 Katyusha rockets across the border, concentrating on the Israeli coastal resort town of Nahariya (pop. 30,000) and the settlement of Qiryat Shemona (pop. 20,000). The attacks killed three Israelis and injured 25. The assault had been well aimed and well timed to maximize casualties; salvo after salvo of rockets, fired at tenor 15-minute intervals, fell on the two communities at an hour when many of their residents were homeward bound from work and thus unprotected.

The selection of Qiryat Shemona as a target had a special significance for Israelis, who remember the Palestinian attack of 1974 on the settlement that left 18 Israelis dead, including eight children. In the recent election campaign, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had vowed: "Never again shall Katyusha rockets hit Qiryat Shemona." When he learned of the latest attack, Begin, who is on the verge of forming a new government with the help of three small religious parties, is said to have reacted with great emotion. "He was angry, tough and vicious," a Foreign Ministry official said later. Clearly the Israeli response would not be long in coming, and it was not.

On Thursday, Israeli planes destroyed six important bridges in southern Lebanon, thereby cutting the main roads south from Beirut and isolating such Palestinian strongholds as Nabatiyeh, Tyre and Hasbaya. Then on Friday morning, in their fifth strike within seven days, the Israelis launched their assault on Beirut, hitting not only at Palestinian and Syrian positions near Beirut airport and the Kuwaiti embassy but also at the Shatila refugee camp. On Saturday, as Israeli planes made still another raid on southern Lebanon, Palestinian guerrillas lobbed a few more Katyusha rockets at northern Israel. The Palestinian action was noteworthy less for its scope than for the fact that it occurred so soon after the Israelis had knocked out so many bridges in the region. Israeli authorities concluded that the Palestinians were using mules, which can ford streams, to transport the sophisticated rockets to launching areas in southern Lebanon.

In the exchange of raids, the casualty figures so far greatly favor the Israelis. In deed, in the 18-month period ending July 1, only 21 Israelis were killed as a result of Palestinian attacks from Lebanon.

During the same period, at least 400 Palestinians and Lebanese were killed by Israeli attacks. Of these, 90% were civilians, according to U.N. officials in Lebanon. Since the Israeli raids resumed a week ago, three Israelis have been killed; on the Lebanese side, at least 275 have died, the great majority civilians.

P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat, appealing to Arab heads of state for "your swords, not merely your blessings," declared that the latest Israeli raids marked the beginning of a large-scale campaign to remove the Palestinian guerrilla presence from southern Lebanon. In Jerusalem, a ranking Israeli officer speculated that the best way of dealing with the guerrillas might be to "blitz our way, round the clock, into southern Lebanon with long-range artillery fire." On the other hand, said another officer, the Israelis might decide to bide their time before carrying out "a combined air, land and sea operation, whenever the conditions call for it."

As for causing civilian casualties, Menachem Begin was making no apologies. "We will not intentionally direct our fire against the civilian population," he declared. "We shall, however, continue to attack terrorist bases and headquarters, even if they are purposefully located in the vicinity of or within civilian concentrations." The responsibility, he added, "shall fall on those who seek immunity for themselves by knowingly endangering civilians." The Israelis obviously feel they lave the options--and the firepower--to do as they like.

--By William E. Smith. Reported by David Halevy/Jerusalem and William Stewart/Beirut

With reporting by David Halevy, William Stewart

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.