Democratic Palestine : 22 (ص 18)
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- Democratic Palestine : 22 (ص 18)
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border zone. The resistance fighters
took total control of these posts and
held them for a number of hours.
Several military vehicles were
destroyed, while the resistance fighters
took with them a tank, ammunition
and light weapons when they withdrew.
Reports from South Lebanon revealed
that the Israeli occupiers didn’t dare
return to the Barachit post until hours
after the guerrillas had left. Lahd’s men
flatly refused to go back at all.
On January Sth, according to Israeli
admission, five SLA men died in a
roadside bomb explosion near
Markaba, northeast of Bint Jbail. Two
SLA militiamen were killed and three
injured in a resistance attack near
Rihan in the north-central part of the
occupied zone, on January 7th. More
than 10 other resistance attacks occur-
red in the same week.
In January, the Lebanese National
Resistance Front staged a total of 80
attacks on the Israeli occupation forces
and the SLA, averaging between two
and three attacks daily, in all parts of
the occupied border zone, but most
concentrated in the central and eastern
areas around Bint Jbail, Marjeyoun
and Hasbaya. The most frequent type
of operation was attacks on enemy
patrols and posts, using rockets and
other weapons. There were also many
explosions against enemy posts and
patrols, as well as a number of am-
bushes and direct clashes with the
enemy forces. In January, Katyusha
rockets were also directed against
Zionist settlements in northern
Palestine on four different occasions,
as if to reemphasize the failure of the
Israelis’ 1982 invasion of Lebanon
under the false slogan of «Peace for the
Galilee».
ENEMY DEMORALIZATION
Signs of demoralization were ram-
pant among the SLA militiamen in ear-
ly January. Reports from South
Lebanon told of rising friction between
the Israeli occupation army and the
SLA. One SLA officer told his Israeli
commander that the Israelis promise to
support them, but actually only laugh
at them. Calling on his forty soldiers to
resign, the SLA officer said he no
longer trusted the Israeli army or its
promises. Families of SLA men killed
18
in attacks refused to receive the Israeli
soldiers who came to pay condolences.
According to Lebanese security
sources, 115 militiamen in the Bint
Jbail area applied to resign from the
SLA in the first week of January.
All this indicates a partial backfire
for the Israeli policy of putting reac-
tionary or ignorant Lebanese in the
frontline posts controlling their oc-
cupied zone, in order to save Israeli
lives. In truth, it is the SLA that takes
the brunt of the casualties. Over 100
have been killed and 200 wounded since
the Israelis withdrew to their self-
proclaimed ‘security zone’ in June
1984. About one-third of these SLA
casualties have occurred in the past few
months, bringing the- situation to a
peak. According to the Israelis, over
300 SLA militiamen have deserted since
September 1986. The Israelis term this a
10% desertion rate for they claim the
SLA numbers over 2,500. However,
independent observers estimate the
SLA at about 1,500, which makes the
desertion rate closer to 20%.
‘Israel’ is now paying SLA salaries in
dollars in an attempt to avoid deser-
tions and recruit new members.
However, pure monetary incentive has
proved to be insufficient even in crisis-
ridden Lebanon, and much harsher
measures are also enforced. In the
eastern sector of the occupied zone,
Israeli intelligence officers threatened
the mayor of Shabaa that 50-70 youth
from the town must join the SLA, or
Shabaa would face a food blockade. In
the western sector of the occupied zone,
the Israeli occupation army imposed
compulsory SLA service on the youth
in Naqoura. Otherwise, they must pay
360,000 Lebanese pounds annually, to
cover the salary of a militiaman. This
made some Naqoura families decide to
leave, because their sons did not want
to join the SLA, but the Israelis then
blocked them from travelling.
Following the mid-January visit of a
high-level Israeli military delegation to
the ‘security zone’, SLA positions in the
central and western sectors were rein-
forced with tanks. More Israeli soldiers
were placed alongside the SLA in posts
along the dividing line between
liberated and occupied Lebanon. New
strategic outposts were set up on the
northern edge of the occupied zone,
supervised by the Israelis at night and
the SLA in the day. However, reports
continued of SLA militiamen refusing
to man certain posts where the
Lebanese National Resistance Front
had made attacks.
WAR ZONE
The real extent of the Israelis’ at-
tempt to ‘boost’ the SLA, in order to
save their own occupation, is seen in
their horrendous treatment of the
civilian population of South Lebanon.
This only serves to reemphasize that it
is not at all a ‘security zone’ that the
Israelis have established, but a real war
zone for continuing their policy of
scorched earth, attrition and collective
punishment against the southern
villagers. The gross violations of
human rights summarized below show
clearly that the Zionists aim to empty
the occupied zone of all patriots, if not
all inhabitants - and even the UNIFIL -
in order to keep it as a launching pad
for their aggression against Lebanon as
a whole.
Shelling is the favorite SLA/Israeli
form of collective punishment. Hardly
a day passes without the bombardment
of villages and agricultural land,
especially along the dividing line bet-
ween liberated and occupied Lebanon.
In January, there were 57 instances of
such shelling, hitting over 40 different
villages and towns, killing over twenty
citizens, and destroying houses and
crops. Some places were repeatedly hit.
Maidoun, Jbaa and Jarjouh, lying
north of major Israeli/SLA positions in
the central and eastern parts of the oc-
cupied zone, were each shelled three to
five times, as was Barachit, farther
south.
On five different occasions in
January, Israeli helicopter gunships
raided villages, firing rockets and
straffing with machine guns. Early in
the month, two Israeli helicopters
raided a village north of Shabaa. This
was accompanied by a mini-invasion
where a large force of the Israeli oc-
cupation army crossed the ‘security’
line, advanced eight kilometers and
shelled areas where grapevines were
planted. On January 4th, six Cobra
helicopters spewed rockets on Qabrika
and Kirbet Salim villages, north of Bint
Jbail, wounding fifteen persons and - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 22
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