Lebanon cease-fire ends four days of artillery duels

Press, 27 August 1979, Page 8

Lebanon cease-fire ends four days of artillery duels

A cease-fire went into effect in southern Lebanon yesterday afternoon, an official United Nations spokesman said.

The cease-fire had been accepted by all parties concerned, and first reports indicated that it was holding. The cease-fire came after more than four days of heavy artillery duels between Israeli-backed militias in a narrow border enclave and Palestinian forces a few kilometres to the north. It was preceded by a particularly heavy bombardment during the night. United Nations military observers in the south estimated that more than 1200 artillery and mortar shells and rockets were fired in the few hours before the truce agreement. Most of the shells came from the Israeli border region, they said. The Lebanese State radio reported that long-range Israeli guns had pounded a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Sidon, a "nrt city 35km from the border.

The 175 mm shells, the biggest in Israel’s amoury, had cut power supplies to the city, the radio said. An NZPA-Reuter correspondent in Sidon said five persons in the refugee camp had been wounded by the bombardment. He said that the coastal city of Tyre and the market town of Nabatiyeh further south were coming under fire minutes before the cease-fire went into effect. The uneasy calm returned to the embattled south after a day of intensive mediation efforts by the commander of a 6000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force. As the big guns fell silent, Beirut Radio said Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations (Mr Ghassan Tueni)

had left for New York to discuss the Government’s request for an emergency session of the Security Council. The request was made on Friday evening, but the Foreign Minister (Mr Fuad Butros) said on Saturday that the session could be slightly delayed if there was a successful cease-fire agreement. Official sources in Beirut said President Elias Sarkis was planning to seek a summit meeting of Arab leaders to obtain help for the embattled south of his country. On Friday, three Fijian soldiers were killed and two injured when a United Nations force in the south was attacked by “armed elements” — the U.N. name for Lebanese Leftist and Palestinian forces.