Leader flees barrage

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 6

Leader flees barrage

NZPA-Reuter Beirut The Lebanese President, Mr Amin Gemayel, met the Syrian leader, Hafez Assad, in Damascus yesterday and Shi’ite forces kept up their 11-day-old assault on three Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.

Mr Gemayel went to the Syrian capital after escaping death when shells set his office and library ablaze in the Presidential Palace, in a

Christian suburb of Beirut. The city’s airport was also bombarded, but flights were unaffected. An anonymous telephone caller to international news agencies in Beirut said that the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) group had killed a British teacher whose body was found yesterday. He said that the group had also kidnapped the American director of the American University Hospital on Tuesday and two Frenchmen last week.

Shi’ite Amal fighters and Army soldiers shelled the Sabra, Shatila, and Bourj elBrajneh camps during the day. Beirut Radio said later that the fighting had eased. A Christian radio Station said that Messrs Gemayel and Assad had met privately, but gave no details of what they discussed. Syria’s official news media blame the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s chairman, Mr Yasser Arafat, for starting the fighting in Beirut, while lavishing praise on Amal for its part in fighting Israeli forces occupying south Lebanon. Amal is determined to disarm the Palestinians to prevent them from rebuilding the power they had before Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Under the Shi’ite onslaught Palestinian factions have temporarily sunk their disputes over Mr Arafat’s search for peace talks with Israel to defend the camps.