Cabinet Minister Yaacov Meridor, who is in charge of Israeli aid to south Lebanon civilians, told an Israel Radio press conference today units of the Sixth Fleet with American marines on board were already on their way to Lebanon and could be off the shore within two or three days.
He said one of the problems of making any arrangement with the PLO was the number of varied and opposing bodies which made up that organization, with which Israel refuses to talk. He appeared to doubt whether any hard and fast arrangement could be made with Yasir Arafat or any other PLO leader without contradiction by a rival group within the organization.
Meridor said that 331 Lebanese civilians had been killed in the fighting and the Israel Defense Force had told him that another 1,200 PLO terrorists and Palestinian civilians had been killed during stiff fighting within the refugee camps which the PLO had turned to strongpoints and fortifications.
He said the Red Cross and other international bodies now agreed with Israel’s figures, based on local Lebanese sources. They could not explain their earlier far larger estimates of casualties but said the Israeli figures were “correct as of now, ” suggesting the earlier figures might also have been correct. But Meridor said that in conversations with their representatives they could give no explanation of the difference in the estimates.
Meridor said much of the international aid offered was not needed, as it was based on the earlier exaggerated figures Most of the ambulances sent by Israel to aid the wounded had now been brought back to Israel, as they and the equipment and tools they carried were not required.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
