Invasion toll 20,000 say Beirut police

Press, 2 December 1982, Page 8

Invasion toll 20,000 say Beirut police

NZPA Beirut Nearly 20.000 people were killed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, according to the Lebanese police, who are compiling a detailed casualty report to be issued early next year. According to officers working on the study 19,085 people died and 30,302 were wounded between June 4 and August 31 in the fighting between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Israel puts the casualty toll much lower. An Isreali Army spokesman in Tel Aviv said that he had no figures for Beirut, but he said that 331 Lebanese and “over 1000" Palestinians were killed in the rest of Lebanon during the fighting. The Lebanese police listed the Beirut death toll at 6775 and the rest of Lebanon at 12,310. They said that 84 per cent of those killed in Beirut had been civilians. Of the civilian dead, they said that

33 per cent were aged under fifteen years, and 24.9 per cent were 50 or older. The statistical breakdown for Israeli-occupied south Lebanon is not as detailed as the one for Beirut, but according to police reports up to 80 per cent of those killed outside Beirut had been combatants. Western diplomats, while shying away from establishing the total number of casualties for fear of political repercussions, say that they, too. believe that about 80 per cent of the Beirut dead were civilians while about 80 per cent of the dead in south Lebanon were guerrillas. Police officers working on the report concede that their statistics are not entirely reliable. But they say that they are close to the actual number of casualties between Israel's air raids on June 4. which preceded the invasion of June 6, and the end of August when the removal of P.L.O. guerrillas from west Beirut was nearly

over. Police sources said that' the death toll had been compiled by cross-checking reports from municipal governments. hospitals, local police stations. and “mukhtars" — the popularly elected local "head men" who certify documents related to deaths and inheritances. Reuter reports that the invasion caused damage to housing, services and commercial buildings estimated at 5U51.9 billion (SNZ2.6 billion). The figure was given in a report prepared for the Council for Development and Reconstruction, which is masterminding plans to rebuild battered parts of the country. The council has a ?USI2 billion (SNZI7 billion) plan to rebuild the country over five to 10 years. By far the most cash is for housing, where damage was estimated at SUSBS9 million (SNZI94O million).