Palestinians ‘in terror’

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 10

Palestinians ‘in terror’

NZPA-Reuter Beirut After six days of fierce fighting, Shi’ite Muslim militiamen and Lebanese Army troops appeared to be meeting strong resistance at one Palestinian camp near Beirut after taking control of two others. The death toll in the fighting at the camps, which broke out a week ago, has risen to about 245 and more than 1000 people have been wounded, according to hospital sources. In Damascus, the Syrianbacked Palestine National Salvation Front, a coalition of radical Palestinian groups, appealed to Syria to stop “massacres and acts of extermination.” Political sources said the Arab League’s Secretarygeneral, Chadli Klibi, was flying to Beirut today for talks on the fighting, which has provoked mounting international concern. Machine-gun fire and explosions still echoed from the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps but an army officer said that the Shi’te Amal movement, determined to prevent a build-up of Palestinian military power in Lebanon, and the Army’s Shi’ite Sixth Brigade had taken virtual control. About 40 Palestinians were still inside but "militarily it is finished for Sabra and Shatila,” the officer

said. Palestinian fighters appeared to be putting up a fierce resistance at the third camp, Bourj alBarajneh. Amal fighters said many women and children were inside. The Salvation Front said it had rejected a peace proposal, passed on by Syria, under which the Sixth Brigade would take over the camps. A Front spokesman called on the Amal to leave the camps and let the Red Cross evacuate casualties. Widespread reports said hundreds of Palestinian men had been rounded up by Amal militiamen and many Palestinian women complained that their menfolk had been detained. Hundreds of Palestinian families have taken refuge in buildings under the protection of the mainly Druse Muslim Progressive Socialist Party. “We are living in terror,” said one Palestinian. Amal has accused Palestine Liberation Organisation’s leader, Yasser Arafat, of provoking the fighting by trying to arm the camps for attacks on Israel, which invaded Lebanon in 1982 with the stated aim of rooting out Palestinian commandos. The Salvation Front, like the Syrian Government, is opposed to Arafat but said that defending the camps was its sole right.