An Israeli soldier was killed in south Lebanon today and Israel Air Force jets attacked targets in Lebanon for the third time this week. A military spokesman said two buildings serving as terrorist headquarters and bases were hit in the Behamdoun area near the Beirut-Damascus highway and that a 130 mm. artillery battery was also hit. Reports from Beirut said four Israeli aircraft carried out the raid.
The soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed in Nabatiya, within the Israel-occupied zone.
Meanwhile, senior Israeli sources sought today to reconcile the stepped up air attacks and armored patrol activity well north of the Awali River line with the government’s insistence that it has no interest in Lebanon’s internal politics and internecine strife. Opposition critics say the military actions and the professed policy of non-intervention in Lebanese affairs are contradictory.
VALID SECURITY INTERESTS NORTH OF AWALI RIVER
The senior sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that Israel will “not interfere” in the “internal Lebanese” issue but at the same time it has valid security interests in the area north of the Awali River where the Israel Defense Force is presently deployed. Israel does not want a massive reinfiltration of the area by the Palestine Liberation Organization nor does it want a “wild west” situation to develop there, the sources said.
According to the sources, the Druze in central Lebanon are seeking to follow up their recent successful operations against the Lebanese army by establishing “an outlet to the sea” for their embryonic “canton” in the Shouf mountains southeast of Beirut. That is the underlying strategic significance of the Druze thrusts toward the Beirut-Sidon coastal highway, the sources said.
That assessment implied that the Druze, like the Israelis, discount any prospect that the government of President Amin Gemayel and its remaining armed forces would be able to assert authority in all parts of the country. The Druze want their seaport just like the solidly Christian enclave north of Beirut has a seaport at Junieh, the sources said.
The sources stressed that Israel’s security concerns north of the Awali are valid even though there is active consideration in government circles for a redeployment of the IDF to new lines south of the Awali River and closer to the Israeli border. That is the reason for the strengthened ground patrols and the air strikes this week, the sources said.
They indicated that Israel would not object to a United Nations buffer role north of the Awali but they do not see it materializing because of maneuverings by the Soviet Union in the UN Security Council. There is even less chance of a UN force to replace the multinational force in Beirut, according to the sources.
There has been criticism in opposition circles–and privately in some government circles as well–of the wisdom of the IDF’s high profile north of the Awali. Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post asked editorially this morning how “flag showing” north of the Awali can be reconciled with non-intervention and redeployment in Lebanon.
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