300 killed in widely condemned Israeli air raid

Press, 20 July 1981, Page 8

300 killed in widely condemned Israeli air raid

NZPA-Reuter Damascus The Arab world heaped criticism upon the United States yesterday over Israel’s fierce air assault on Beirut. The official press, from radical Syria and the conservative United Arab Emirates, reflected a growing Arab conviction that Washington is acquiescing in the Israeli raids on Lebanon. In Kuwait, a conservative Gulf State, one newspaper even said Lebanon should abandon the United States and form an alliance with the Soviet Union. In New York, Lebanon told the United Nations Security Council that 300 people had been killed and 800 wounded in Israel’s attack on Beirut.

The Lebanese delegate, Fakhri Saghiyyah, appealed to the council to “stop the carnage.'’ The Palestine news agency Wafa said the people were killed when Eagle and Phanton jets delivered what it called "the most savage air attacks ever inflicted on Lebanon." Israel said its strikes on Beirut, the first for three years, were aimed at the headquarters of two Palestinian commando groups, the dominant Fatah organisation and the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The D.F.L.P. acknowledged that its "administrative centre” in Beirut had been hit but said civilian

residents in the same and neighbouring buildings were also injured. The Israelis said that they would strike at Palestinian targets even if thev were in civilian areas.

President Ronald Reagan deplored the new flareup of violence in the Middle East and said no decision had been made yet on whether to permit the delivery of American Fl 6 fighterbombers to Israel. The semi-official Vatican newspaper "L’Observatore Romano" implicitly condemned Israel for its air raids on Beirut. “We cannot conceal that especially yesterday's bombings of inhabited areas of Beirut provoke strong disapproval.

"It is inadmissable to indiscriminately hit the civil population in order to reach ‘terrorists' hiding among it,” “L’Observatore” said in a front-page editorial. The editorial was unsigned and was therefore believed to reflect official Vatican thinking. The American peace envoy, Philip Habib, meets the Israeli Prime minister (Mr Menachem Begin) today in a bid to halt the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Mr Habib arrived in Israel shortly after ,the Deputy Defence ' Minister (Mr Mordechai Zipori) said that Israel could adopt harsher measures against the Palestinians in Lebanon. “If American efforts to bring about a ceasefire

failed. Israel will continue to defend its citizens. If there is no quick relief, harsher measures will be taken against the terrorists,”. Mr Zipori said The presence of Mr Habib in Jerusalem would not deter Israel from more attacks if it thought they were necessary. He said his country would act "even if friends of Israel are in the region."

Six Israelis were wounded on Saturday by intermittent Palestinian rocket fire from Lebanon. Residents of Israeli frontier towns and villages spent the third consecutive night in air-raid shelters as technicians continued repairing damage caused bj' rocket attacks. Mr Habib has so far failed to resolve the crisis over the presence of Syrian anti-air-craft missiles in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, an issue which has threatened war between Israel and Syria.

Wafa said that Israeli and Palestinian gunners traded intensive artillery fire yesterday. It said the Israelis pounded coastal areas from Tyre north to Sidon, as well as Palestinian strongholds around Nabatiyeh in the central sector, and also flew repeated helicopter sorties over south Lebanon. The Palestinians said that in reply they and their Leftist Lebanses allies fired rockets at Israeli positions in Galilee, including Nahariyah, Misgav Amm, Kiryat Shmona. Sheriashov and Dan.