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Lebanon Official Releases Secret Provisions of Pact with Palestinian Guerrillas

January 19, 1970
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The Lebanese Government has made public the hitherto secret provisions of an agreement it reached with Palestinian guerrilla leaders in Cairo on Nov. 3. According to information reaching here, it contains three major limitations on guerrilla activities intended to protect Lebanese civilians from Israeli reprisal raids. According to the document which President Charles Helou disclosed for the first time Friday, the guerrillas agreed not to fire on Israeli targets from the Lebanese side of the border; not to provide military training inside Palestinian refugee camps; and not to establish bases in inhabited areas near the southern borders.

The Cairo agreement came after several weeks of pitched battles between Lebanese Army units and guerrillas ensconced in the southern border regions and infiltrating from Syria. The fighting sparked pro-guerrilla riots in Lebanese refugee camps and in Beirut and Sidon, the two largest cities. The details were disclosed in Beirut by the Lebanese Minister of Health. Habib Mutran. Reportedly, it was made public at the insistence of Public Works Minister Pierre Gemayel in order “to give the opportunity to officials and Lebanese in general to judge who is actually committing a breach of the specific articles.”

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