Army Shuts Down Palestinian Strong Points in Southern Lebanon

By Marilyn Raschka

After 20 years of virtual autonomy in Lebanon, the PLO lost a four-day war to the Lebanese army and a four-hour "peace conference" to the Lebanese government. The battles, which began July 1 and ended July 4, were fought near the port city of Sidon, where some Palestinian fighters resisted army attempts to deploy in areas around two refugee camps, Ein El-Helweh and Miyeh Miyeh.

As the gun smoke cleared, analysts tried to sort out the winners and the losers. There can be no argument that the 76 people who died—among them many civilians—were among the losers. But many of the living were left wondering about the PLO's ill-fated last stand. The International Red Cross brought five casualties from the camps to Palestinian Red Crescent Society hospitals in Beirut on July 5. Two were fighters; two were civilians. Their injuries left them paralyzed for life.

The fifth was a newborn baby. His Palestinian mother, 7 months pregnant, was killed by shrapnel during the fighting. Doctors managed to save the baby.

Among civilians taken to safety were the four Palestinians whom Israel deported to Lebanon in May, and the American wife and daughter of a Palestinian-American who had brought them to Lebanon to visit his family, residents of Ein El-Helweh.

On the political level, the major loser was the PLO. Routed from southern Lebanon in 1982 by Israelis and from northern Lebanon in 1983 by Syria, the organization's attempt to make a comeback on Lebanese soil only angered the Lebanese, and made Palestinians targets for the air power of Israel. In the first six months of 1991, the Israelis staged 12 air attacks, killing 23 and wounding 96, which they described as "destroying guerrilla bases used to carry out attacks on Israel."

Statements like this show how truth itself has become a loser. At this point, there are no such things as guerrilla bases in the Sidon area. There are only packed Palestinian refugee camps and deserted Lebanese villages like Lebaa, seven miles east of Sidon. Abdullah Mahfouz was once a resident of Lebaa. "This was the most beautiful place in south Lebanon," he said, looking over the deserted buildings. At 1,200 feet it has the climate of a summer resort, but being 30 miles from Beirut it escaped the mad rush of summer refugees fleeing the capital's sticky climate.

When Israel withdrew from this area in 1985, it "willed" Lebaa and dozens of other Christian villages to the rightist Christian "Lebanese Forces" militia. The villagers thought the militiamen would protect them. But, as outsiders from the Christian enclave north of Beirut, the Lebanese Forces militia quickly lost to the local Sunni Muslim militia and its Palestinian allies, who knew the ground and considered it their turf. There was barely time for the terrified villagers to pack a bag and leave. That was six years ago.

Lebaa today is in shambles. The militias stripped the houses bare, looted the handful of tiny shops, vandalized the school and smashed every inch of the church interior.

The houses in the empty village quickly became what the Israelis called "guerrilla bases"—an empty house, a couple of sleeping bags, basic cooking supplies and ineffective weapons. From the village high point the fighters lobbed rockets toward the Israeli backed "South Lebanon Army" militia, dug in a couple of kilometers away. The response to these attacks often came straight from the Israeli air force: another air raid on suspected bases."

Abdullah Mahfouz was lucky. His house was not used. But his uncle's home, just 50 feet away, was. Today it is nothing but a pile of rubble. The Lebanese army is now in control, and Lebaa's former residents are returning. Mubarak Asi, a relative of Abdullah's, arrived from Florida in late June to pay an annual visit to his family, who had fled to east Beirut when the village fell. On his first trip back to Lebaa he couldn't conceal his bitterness. After picking up broken bits of statue from the church floor, he stormed out cursing.

Bitterness is common, but only as a secondary response. The first is an overwhelming pride in the Lebanese army's ability to reclaim the territory held by the PLO fighters. Newspapers couldn't print enough pictures of Lebanese commandos storming Palestinian strongholds. As tanks rolled through Lebanese villages, residents threw handfuls of rose petals and rice. Children climbed up and into tanks with the help of the soldiers.

The "good guy" image took only one stumble. A foreign news agency snapped a picture of Lebanese army troops ripping up a Palestinian flag at the entrance to a camp. It appeared the following day in thepress and was mentioned on the BBC. Anger also was expressed by some of the PLO fighters. Frustrated by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's decision to give in to the Lebanese government, one Palestinian guerrilla fighter tore down a picture of the PLO chairman and ripped it up. His friends begged him to stop. "Not in front of the army," they said.

While the PLO was fighting a losing battle around the camps, its deadly rival group, the Fatah Revolutionary Council (Fatah RC), headed by breakaway Palestinian extremist Abu Nidal, was meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami. The Abu Nidal delegation, in suits and ties, had come to assure Karami that it supported army deployment—no argument whatsoever.

And while Arafat's fighters were turning their guns against the Lebanese army, Fatah RC was turning over its weapons and ammunition to the Lebanese military. Among the surrendered items were plastic explosives, imported and homemade timing devices, as well as the standard array of arms resulting from more than two decades of Palestinian guerrilla activity in Lebanon.

July 4th brought all that to an end. The four hours of discussions that afternoon were all give and little get for the PLO, as it agreed to turn over its heavy and medium weapons, as well as the responsibility for camp security, to the Lebanese army. As the Arabic press boldly headlined the bloody end of the affair: "This Case Is Closed."

Marilyn Raschka is a free-lance writer who lives in Beirut, where she is an editor of the Americans for Justice in the Middle East newsletter.