A Knesset panel was told today that there is an “explosive situation in southern Lebanon.” The report, presented to the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Lebanon, drew a request from the subcommittee’s chairman, Labor MK Danny Rosolio, that the U.S. be asked to explain how it intends to implement its commitment to defuse the situation in Lebanon.
Rosolio noted that the escalation of dangerous situations was not uncommon in the region. But he expressed concern that U.S. special envoy Philip Habib has left and there is no word from Washington
when or if he would return. Habib just completed his fourth Middle East tour since last May when he was sent to the Middle East by President Reagan to resolve the Israeli-Syrian missile crisis in Lebanon.
Rosolio told reporters after the subcommittee meeting that “There is an extremely high accumulation of weaponry by the Palestine Liberation Organization” in Lebanon. “If we add to this fact that there are ceasefire violations, there can be an explosive situation.”
Last Sunday an Irish soldier of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was wounded while on patrol. Shots were fired at another Irish soldier in a different sector of the front. UNIFIL troops have been involved in clashes with Maj. Saad Haddad’s Christian militia in south Lebanon.
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