Israel has allowed some 25,000 refugees from Beirut into the southern Lebanon security zone as a humanitarian gesture, despite the fact that 90 percent of them are Shiites, a Moslem community hostile to Israel, according to Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Speaking to a group of Israeli and foreign correspondents during a visit to the security zone Thursday, Rabin contrasted Israel’s humanitarian gesture with the failure of the world community to halt the Syrian bombardment of Beirut.
The security zone is an enclave parallel to the Israel border which is policed by the Israel Defense Force and its surrogate South Lebanon Army.
Rabin held his impromptu news conference at the Beth Yahoun crossing, where refugees from the fighting in northern and central Lebanon arrive daily.
As he spoke, Rabin pointed to a family — including 2- and 3-year-old toddlers — who were just arriving from shell-torn Beirut with whatever possessions they could rescue on their backs.
The world powers express shock and regrets but do nothing to put a stop to the “genocide,” Rabin told the journalists.
He was repeating the charge leveled by the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, after the U.N. Security Council convened to deal with the carnage in Lebanon but failed even to pass a formal resolution condemning the bloodshed.
At least 800 Lebanese are believed to have died and thousands have been injured since the Syrian army launched an artillery and rocket attack two weeks ago on Lebanese Christian strongholds defended by the forces of Gen. Michel Aoun.
Rabin gave vent to a familiar complaint of Israelis that they are held to a higher standard of conduct than others.
“When the Syrians started killing scores of hundreds of people in and around Beirut, nobody bothered to summon the Security Council,” Rabin said.
“But when three of our soldiers overstepped the rules of military conduct in Nablus, we were denounced throughout the world.”
Rabin dismissed a statement attributed to the Syrian foreign minister, Mustafa Klas, that Damascus would allow the Palestine Liberation Organization and other terrorist groups to attack Israel from Syrian territory.
“I cannot imagine that the Syrians will allow terrorists to act against us anywhere along the Israel-Syria frontier on the Golan Heights,” he said.
“That would be a serious contravention of the separation of forces agreement between them and us on the Golan Heights, and the Syrians are aware of what Israel’s reaction would be to such attacks.”
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