Dr. Pinchas Harris, Deputy Surgeon General in the Israeli Defense Force, who was called to Israel from sabbatical leave in the United States when the Lebanese action began, declared here that the figures from various sources on civilian casualties in Lebanon were “groundless.”
Speaking at a press conference at the Israeli Consulate, Harris cited figures of 600,000 homeless Lebanese and Palestinians and 10,000 civilian casualties, coming from various organizations, which he said included the Lebanese Red Cross, and challenged the figures with data he said were based on Israeli counts of wounded and dead and “not on estimates.” During his recall, he said, he supervised medical services in Tyre and Sidon.
“The number of civilians killed in all Israeli-controlled territory in Lebanon, excluding west Beirut, as of last week, was under 400,” Harris declared. He said the number of civilian wounded was about 1,500.
Naphtalie Lavie, Israel’s Consul General in New York, speaking at the press conference last Friday, responded to a question with the statement that “hundreds” of Lebanese girls, aged 14 to 16, were pregnant as a result of being raped by members of the PLO and other terrorists.
Lavie invited members of the media to come to Lebanon to cover such “atrocities” and promised every journalist wanting to go would have “free access to see for himself or herself.”
Harris, who has been spending his leave at Walter Reed Hospital returned to the U.S. to complete his sabbatical. He said he plans to stay in the United States for a month to complete his sabbatical and then to return to his duties with the IDF.
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