Heavy fighting continued around Beirut today. Israel Air Force planes bombed Palestine Liberation Organization positions in west Beirut and artillery and tank gunners exchanged fire with terrorists south of the city. An army spokesman announced that three Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded today. Israel said its aircraft destroyed newly deployed Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries in eastern Lebanon yesterday and admitted the loss of one Phantom jet.
Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Philip Habib, who was due in Israel this afternoon, changed his plans at the last minute and flew to London to see King Hussein of Jordan who is there on a private visit. Habib was in Damascus and Riyadh over the weekend and in Egypt today where he met with President Hosni Mubarak. He is now expected to come to Israel directly from London.
According to reports from Cairo, Habib failed to persuade Mubarak to accept any of the estimated 5,000-6,000 PLO men besieged in Beirut by Israeli forces. The two men declined to make any statement after their two-hour meeting. Habib was later quoted by the Middle East News Agency as saying his meeting with Mubarak was important and useful.
SHAMIR SENT TO WASHINGTON
Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir has been sent to Washington for talks with Secretary of State George Shultz. His dispatch to the U.S. had been urged by Cabinet moderates anxious to make sure that all diplomatic avenues have been explored before Israel launches an assault aimed at ousting the PLO from Beirut and Lebanon.
Observers here do not expect Israel to mount a direct attack on west Beirut while Habib continues his mission and Shamir is in Washington. But a senior minister was quoted today as saying that there is “a strong feeling in the Cabinet that the time has come to end” the Beirut deadlock.
Habib has been in Beirut for over a month trying, so far without success, to negotiate the peaceful departure of the PLO remnant from west Beirut and Lebanon. The chief obstacle was said to be the refusal of any of the Arab countries to receive the 5,000-6,000 armed PLO men and their families. The State Department announced last Thursday that on Reagan’s instructions Habib would visit several Arab capitals and Israel in an effort to break the impasse.
HABIB PRESSING FOR A PLAN
Habib reportedly is pressing for a plan that would give the PLO men temporary haven in northern Lebanon or in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley until a permanent refuge can be found. That plan was said to have been proposed by Prince Saud AI-Faisal, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, and Abdel Halem Khaddam, the Foreign Minister of Syria, at their meetings with Reagan and Shultz in Washington last week.
The plan reportedly won the support of Yitzhak Rabin, a leader of the opposition Labor Party, but was flatly rejected by Premier Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. The Begin government insists on the total removal of the PLO from Lebanon.
LATEST SOVIET-MADE BATTERIES WERE DESTROYED
According to an Israeli military spokesman, the three anti-aircraft missile batteries destroyed yesterday were of the SAM-8 type, the most modem Soviet weapon of that class which until now has been provided only to the Warsaw Pact countries.
They were reportedly installed by the Syrians Friday in the easternmost end of the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border and near the Damascus-Beirut highway. Israel knocked out Syria’s SAM-6 missiles early in the fighting in Lebanon last month, claiming to have used a newly developed weapon to accomplish the task without losses.
But Israel acknowledged that one of its F-4 Phantom jets was downed yesterday by a Syrian SAM-Y6 missile shortly after the attack on the SAM-8 sites. According to Israeli airmen at the scene, the two Phantom pilots bailed out safely and were captured by Syrian soldiers. Damascus reported that one of the pilots was killed and the other taken prisoner.
The plane was the second Israeli aircraft to be lost since the invasion of Lebanon began last June 6. The first was downed by Palestinians who reportedly hold the pilot prisoner. Meanwhile, army sources here have denied reports from West Beirut and Damascus of a large-scale advance by Syrian troops toward Israeli lines following yesterday’s air raids.
CABINET WARNS SYRIA
The Cabinet spent five hours today discussing the next steps in getting the PLO men out of Beirut and warned Syria against deploying new weapons in Lebanon. Cabinet Secretary Don Mendor said Syria would face grave consequences if it did deploy new weapons from its Soviet-supplied arsenal.
Meridor said Israel conducted the raids against Syrian and PLO positions to avoid a war of attrition. He said he believed Syria understood from the raids that Israel would not tolerate Palestinian attacks from Syrian controlled territory. Israel launched its latest raids last Thursday after terrorists ambushed Israeli soldiers in Lebanon a day earlier. Five Israelis were killed and six were wounded in two separate ambushes.
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon said today that in Thursday’s raids the Israelis destroyed 72 Syrian T-62 tanks, 18 armored personnel carriers, two mobile artillery pieces and nine other vehicles. He also said that six T-34 tanks, seven cannons and on ammunition dump belonging to the PLO were destroyed in Beirut on the some day.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
