The Security Council, again called into emergency session by developments in Lebanon, was expected to approve this evening a Spanish-Jordanian resolution condemning Israel for its purported failure to comply with repeated earlier Council resolutions that Israel immediately cease military action on the outskirts of west Beirut and withdraw from Lebanon. The meeting today was requested by the Soviet Union.
The resolution, which contained a specific threat of sanctions against Israel, demanded the “prompt return” of Israeli troops which move forward after the Council demanded unanimously last Sunday that a cease-fire be made effective immediately and all military activities be halted; Neither resolution referred to military action by Palestine Liberation Organization units in the besieged west sector of Beirut. Israel has repeatedly accused the PLO of violating each of the nine cease-fires arranged previously, most of them through the efforts of Philip Habib, President Reagan’s special envoy.
The text of the latest resolution declared that the Council was “deeply shocked and alarmed by the atrocities committed by the Israeli forces” since Israeli forces moved into Lebanon on June 6.
The resolution asked Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to report to the Security Council on the implementation of the resolution and, “in the case of failure to comply by any of the parties to the conflict, consider effective ways and means in accordance with Chapter VII” of the UN Charter, a reference to sanctions. Punitive measures against an “aggressor” under Chapter VII include embargoes and the use of force to call the offending nation to order.
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