Search for Missing IDF Men Continues

Israel stressed its determination Thursday to continue its massive military search operation in south Lebanon until two Israel Defense Force soldiers kidnapped by Shiite Moslem extremists Monday are found.

That position was stated by Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Maj. Gen. Ori Orr, commander of the IDF in the north who is in charge of the village-by-village, house-to-house search. Both maintained there is good reason to believe the kidnappers and their victims were still in south Lebanon since IDF forces acted quickly to cut off routes of escape to Beirut in the north of the Bekaa Valley to the east.

The two Israeli soldiers were seized in a convoy ambush near Beth Yahun village in the 3-to-12 mile Lebanese border security zone. Two soldiers of the Israel-backed South Lebanon Army were killed and one SLA man was kidnapped.

Their captors call themselves the Islamic Resistance Front but are believed to be part of the fanatical Hezbullah (Party of God) movement, linked to Iran. Rabin said on a television interview Wednesday night that he took “very seriously indeed” a threat by the kidnappers to kill one of the two Israeli soldiers unless the IDF is withdrawn from south Lebanon by a 9 p.m. Thursday deadline, local time.

NO BARGAINING WITH THE KIDNAPPERS

The Defense Minister made it clear that Israel would not bargain with the kidnappers. While Israel has negotiated prisoner exchanges in the past, there is no way it would negotiate over “political or military demands,” he said, adding that a “change in the deployment of the army” was “non-negotiable.”

The Islamic Resistance Front claimed in Beirut Thursday that one of the soldiers has indeed been killed. There was no confirmation. Rabin hinted that the missing men may have been killed in the ambush two days earlier and the killers’ claim that they are being held hostage is false. He noted that the assailants’ initial intention certainly was to kill them, considering the number of bullets pumped into the car in which they were riding. Nevertheless, the Defense Minister declared, the dragnet mounted by IDF armor and infantry in south Lebanon will continue until there is no more “reasonable hope” of locating the kidnappers and their victims. He noted that the dogtags of the two soldiers and their identification papers were displayed on Beirut television Tuesday night. “But that does not mean that they themselves have been taken there,” he said.

Gen. Orr said Thursday there was no hard evidence that the soldiers were spirited away from the security zone or the area immediately to the north, or that either of them was been killed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the IDF search will continue, he said.

The IDF identified the two men Wednesday as Yossi Fink of Raanana and Rahamim Alsheich of Rosh Haayin, both 20 and both students at the Karnei Shomron yeshiva in the West Bank which combines religious instruction with military service.

Israel suffered one casualty since the search began. A sailor aboard an Israel Navy patrol boat was killed by gun fire from the Lebanese shore near Tyre Tuesday morning. He was identified as Daniel Amar, a 19-year-old naval rating from Netanya.

According to overseas media reports, as many as 1,500 IDF soldiers are conducting the search in south Lebanon, supported by hundreds of armored personnel carriers, halftracks, tanks and helicopters. Four terrorists believed to be members of Hezbullah were killed Wednesday in a clash with an IDF unit near Haris village in south Lebanon. There were no Israeli casualties.

The search is being conducted partly in areas patrolled by contingents of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), but no incidents involving Israeli and UNIFIL troops have been reported.