Premier Yitzhak Shamir held consultations today with top ministers, army generals and Foreign Ministry officials on options for a redeployment of the Israel Defense Force in south Lebanon. Israel Radio, reporting this at midday, said the decisions would now be taken “quickly” — in the wake of the Lebanese abrogation of the Israel Lebanon agreement earlier this week.
The radio said the army was being requested to submit concrete options for a new line of deployment to the Cabinet — possibly in time for its next meeting Sunday. The new line, the radio said, would facilitate a thinning out of Israel’s armed presence in south Lebanon.
Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee today that there were “no miracle solutions in Lebanon,” either to the terrorist threat or to the potential Syrian strategic threat. He said a quick withdrawal to the international border — as the Labor Alignment is advocating with increasing firmness and urgency — would not solve Israel’s problems.
Levy disclosed that some 2,000 PLO men had by now infiltrated back into Beirut. He spoke with satisfaction of the “understandings” which Israel had with Druze and other forces regarding the area north of the Awali River.
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