Middle East Wipeout

At first the incursion was uneventful. Some 1,000 Israeli soldiers crossed into Southern Lebanon last week, rounding up villagers for interrogation and warning others not to help terrorists. The soldiers saw little action until they came to the heavily fortified village of Maydun, an outpost of the Shi'ite Muslim fundamentalist group Hizballah, or Party of God. Unleashing 1,000 rounds of artillery, the troops stormed the town at dawn and fought a house-to-house battle against the Islamic defenders. When the siege ended seven hours later, the Israelis counted 40 Shi'ites and three of their own dead. Before heading back to Israel, eleven miles away, the invaders reduced Maydun to rubble, wiping the town off the map.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered the 48-hour incursion in response to attacks on northern Israel by Palestinian guerrillas based in Lebanon. Since December, when the uprising began in the occupied territories, ten border raids have been attempted, five of them successful, leaving six Israelis dead ! and eight wounded. Rabin vowed to launch more such operations "as long as elements in Lebanon attempt attacks against Israel."

Although most Israelis seemed to support Rabin, some critics charged that the Defense Minister had needlessly risked war with Syria, which has troops stationed within firing range of Maydun. Rabin, moreover, had launched the Maydun attack without consulting the Cabinet, which caused several ministers to complain that they could not bear responsibility for an operation that they had not approved. Taking full responsibility, Rabin retorted that the siege was well within his portfolio.

In another move aimed at quashing support for the uprising wherever they can find it, Israeli authorities arrested and served deportation orders on a prominent Palestinian activist, Mubarak Awad, 44, in Jerusalem. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Awad returned to his native city in 1985 to preach peaceful civil disobedience against the occupation. Said his wife: "If the Israelis fear a man who favors nonviolent resistance . . . they must be afraid of everyone."