Security sources stressed today that the Israel Defense Force was making every effort to reduce casualties among Israeli troops in Lebanon, but the present disposition of Israeli forces makes it difficult. They occupy an area of Lebanon with about one million inhabitants.
The sources said the situation would be made easier if the IDF’s disposition is changed under the terms of the withdrawal of forces agreement with Lebanon or after negotiations with the U.S. and Lebanon. But a decision must be made within a few weeks, the sources stressed.
They said there was no intention to fight the Syrians in order to get them to pull out of Lebanon, but neither was there any decision for a unilateral withdrawal by Israel to the Awali River line which defines the 28-mile security zone north of the Israeli border. To do so would create a vacuum into which hostile forces could move, the sources said.
They charged that Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists have breached the agreement they reached with U.S. special envoy Philip Habib last summer for their withdrawal from west Beirut. According to the Israeli sources, hundreds of PLO men have returned to Beirut and a PLO brigade has moved from Syria to the Beirut region. The sources also said that Syrian units withdrawn from Beirut have returned to the Bekaa valley from Syria.
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