Israeli forces continued today air and ground action against Arab terrorists in southern Lebanon following heavy commando raids Friday and Saturday into the heart of “Fatahland,” the area of Lebanon under terrorist control. According to Beirut radio, Israeli jets pounded terrorist strongholds for the third consecutive day. Official Israeli sources gave no details of the continuing military operations, saying only that action was being taken as required to prevent terrorist movements.
It was learned, however, that the Israeli Army Engineers Corps is bull-dozing a road from Israeli territory into “Fatahland” under cover of tanks and artillery and that Air Force jets were called in to silence terrorist artillery believed to have been shelling the road-builders. Although the Lebanese government has asked the United Nations Security Council to apply sanctions against Israel for its armed incursions, most Beirut newspapers today seemed more embittered against the terrorists for involving Lebanese territory in a new conflict with Israel. (See separate story from the UN.)
The latest in the series of Israeli raids against terrorist bases in southern Lebanon followed an upsurge of terrorists activity in the border region last week. An Israeli civilian couple, Albert and Florence Malka of Zaryit, was killed in a bazooka ambush Wednesday night on a road three miles south of the Lebanese border. On Thursday night, an Israeli officer, a soldier and a Bedouin border police inspector were killed in another ambush in the same region and six Israeli soldiers were wounded.
The dead were identified as Lt. Dror Bergmann, 23, of Upper Nazareth; Pvt. Eliayhu Mittleman, and Police Inspector Salah Saadi of Bosmat Tivon. The second ambush occurred only hours after Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. David Elazar warned Lebanese authorities to check terrorist activities or face reprisal action.
BEIRUT PAPERS SCORE TERRORISTS
The reprisals were swift in coming. Early Friday morning Israeli tanks and troops crossed into Lebanon and Skyhawk and Mirage fighter bombers attacked terrorist bases in the region where an estimated 5,000 Palestinian guerrillas are concentrated. The main targets of the ground and air attacks were the villages of Yanta, Ainata and Hebbariye. On Saturday Hebbariye and Rasheiya Fakhar on the slopes of Mt. Hermon about three miles from the Golan Heights were hit.
According to early reports, 12 guerrillas were killed and 40-50 buildings sheltering terrorists were blown up. There were no reports of Israeli casualties. No Israeli planes were lost. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded Saturday during an exchange of fire with terrorists, in the Har Dov section in the western slopes of Mt. Hermon. In an unrelated incident this morning, an Israeli soldier was wounded when fire was opened from Syrian territory in the Hisfin area of the Golan Heights.
The Beirut newspaper, Amal, reported that Israeli reprisal raids came as no surprise and called on the terrorists to stop using Lebanese territory as a base for attacks on Israel. The French language newspaper L’Orient mocked the terrorist claims that they were defending Lebanese territory. The Israeli incursion looked like a parade, the paper said, noting that on Friday morning Israeli troops passed guerrilla general headquarters in Ainata village and distributed bananas to children who thought at first that they were Lebanese soldiers on maneuver. The Israelis communicated with the population in fluent Arabic and even hoisted a Lebanese flag back onto a building from which it had fallen, L’Orient reported.
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