Habib Says All Parties in Lebanon Want to Preserve the Cease-fire

Philip Habib, President Reagan’s special envoy, told Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir today his assessment of the situation in Lebanon is that all parties in the area want to preserve the cease-fire on the Israel-Lebanon border which he helped arrange last July. Habib, who arrived in Israel yesterday after visiting Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, was to meet Premier Menachem Begin later today. He is scheduled to depart for Washington tomorrow.

Israeli sources said Habib’s assessment seemed to be that there would not be an outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon — or across the border from Lebanon — for the time being. The sources also said that Shamir told Habib that Israel was interested in a solution to the fundamental problems of Lebanon, but that as long as the present cease-fire situation exists, Israel would do nothing to change the situation or try to bring about such a solution.

“If we are not attacked, we will not attack,” Shamir told the envoy during their 80-minute meeting, citing the well-established principle of Israeli policy.

PLO WARNS ISRAEL

However, in Beirut, the Voice of Palestine Radio, which is operated by the Palestine Liberation Organization, warned today that the PLO forces and their leftist allies in Lebanon would strike deep inside Israeli-held territory if Israeli leaders persisted in making “provocative statements.”

This was in response to Defense Minister Ariel Sharon who said in a television interview in the United States yesterday that Israel would not move into Lebanon unless there is a “clear provocation” from the PLO terrorist forces there. He said a “clear provocation” would be “when Jews in Israel are killed.”

PREMIER’S OFFICE SAYS MAGAZINE REPORT IS WRONG

Meanwhile, the Premier’s office today denied a report by Newsweek magazine that the Reagan Administration warned Israel not to create a situation that would entail an Israeli attack an south Lebanon. According to the report, the Americans feared that Israel would allow Palestinian terrorists to enter Israel and then act on the basis of declared Israel policy that it would act in Lebanon only if attacked directly by the terrorists in violation of the cease-fire.

The Premier’s office asked the editors of Newsweek to note that Israel does not act “cunningly,” as the magazine reported, but honestly and that it expresses its positions clearly and forthrightly. It also denied that Secretary of State Alexander Haig had ever threatened Israel with economic sanctions.