(newspaper unidentified) · 11 April 1973

CP-1973-026

Premier Quits in Lebanon; Raid Reprisal, Israel Says

3 Top Guerrillas Slain || Explanation in Tel Aviv

By JUAN de ONIS (left-hand story); By TERENCE SMITH (right-hand story)

Shown from the top. The whole column — 7.9 times taller than it is wide — is in the enlargement.

Scan 258 × 2048 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 10—Premier Saeb Salam submitted his resignation today following a predawn raid by Israeli commandos in which three prominent Palestinian guerrilla leaders here were killed. Mr.

Salam, a Moslem, was a close friend of Mohammed Yussef Najjar, chairman of the political department of the Palestine Liberation Organization—the over-all guerrilla group — who was slain in a heavily guarded apartment house here. Mr. Najjar was also known by the code name Abu Yussef. “It is in the public interest that I submit my resignation,” Mr.

Salam, who has been Premier for two years, said after an emergency Cabinet meeting. || JERUSALEM, April 10 — Lieut. Gen. David Elazar, the Israeli Chief of Staff, said today that his forces’ spectacular commando raid in Beirut this morning was staged in response to “the intensification of terrorist acts in Europe and other places in the last months.”

“It is true that most of those acts failed,” he said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, “but we had to act against the phenomena of terrorist activity against Israeli targets abroad.”

General Elazar said that the raid could be considered in part as a retaliation for the Arab guerrilla assaults against an El Al airliner and the residence of the Israeli Ambassador in Cyprus yesterday, but he conceded that the timing was “to some extent a coincidence.”

His implication seemed to be that the raid actually had been planned well in advance of the Cyprus incidents and would have been carried out had they not occurred. Noting that three top guerrilla figures had been assassinated in their own apartments, he added, “The terrorist leaders now must realize our ability to find them in any place.”

The three dead guerrilla leaders were identified as Kamal Adwan, whom General Elazar described as “the man responsible for most of the terrorist activities carried out inside our country,” and Mohammed Yussef Najjar and Kamal Nasser. In an unusual move, General Elazar declined to describe any of the operational details of the raid.

He refused to comment, for instance, on Beirut reports that the Israelis had entered the Lebanese capital from the sea and had been met on the beach by a fleet of rented cars that drove them to their targets. One report said that the commandos had been dressed in civilian clothes and had been guided to their destinations by a woman.

“I have no doubt that there will be many stories coming out of Beirut,” he said with a small smile, “but we are not going to reveal the operational details because I am not sure that we will not be forced to continue this type of operation in the future.”

… Meanwhile, Premier Golda Meir convened the Cabinet at midday to hear detailed reports from the military on both the Beirut raid and the Cyprus incidents. Mrs. Meir also called a special session of Parliament to consider recent guerrilla attacks against the [one word unresolved].

Referring to the raid in Beirut, she told the Parliament: “It was very marvelous because we killed the murderers who were planning to murder again. Shining pages will be written about this.”

How this transcription was made

Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: [no masthead on clipping; “Special to The New York Times” appears under both bylines] — Assembled from 2 scans: the front page (s012_1) and its jump (s012_2, headed “RAID A REPRISAL, ISRAELI DECLARES / Continued From Page 1, Col. 3”). The join is verified by the sentence that breaks across them: the front page ends “...but he con-” and the jump opens “ceded that the timing was ‘to some extent a coincidence.’” The front page carries two side-by-side stories under one banner; the de Onis story is given first and its own jump (Page 14, Column 1) was not supplied, so its text breaks off at the Salam quotation. The Terence Smith story and its jump run continuously. — No masthead survives on either scan. Both datelines read “April 10” with no weekday, which in Times practice is the previous day’s filing, so this is the paper of Wednesday 11 April 1973. It also carries a story (the Premier’s resignation) that happened during the day of the 10th, after the Tuesday paper had gone to press. Date is inferred from the datelines, not read from a masthead. — Two clippings of one article, joined into a single image for the record (s012_1.png, s012_2.png). A further passage was transcribed on 2 November 2026 so a quotation on the voices wall could be checked against this record.

Cite this clipping

More from (newspaper unidentified)

• Kaiser Wilhelm's Trip to Palestine(newspaper unidentified) · 9 April 1898
• States the Arab Point of View Concerning Palestine(newspaper unidentified) · 1 January 1946
• Forcing Palestine to Become a World Problem(newspaper unidentified) · 1 January 1947
• Arab Terrorist Spokesman Killed As Auto Explodes(newspaper unidentified) · 8 July 1972
• Bomb in car kills Arab guerrilla chief(newspaper unidentified) · 8 July 1972
• Arab Who Claimed Massacre Credit Dies(newspaper unidentified) · 8 July 1972
• 57 more from this paper in the full text →

More from the 1970s

• French Plan Protection For Israeli(newspaper unidentified) · 10 January 1973
• Paris Police Plan Special Security Measures for Meir(newspaper unidentified) · 10 January 1973
• Mrs. Meir's Safety StudiedLos Angeles Times · 11 January 1973
• Cases of senseless murder and wanton destructionWisconsin Jewish Chronicle · 19 January 1973
• Palestinian Runs : Arab Newspaper In E. JerusalemDuluth News-Tribune · 4 February 1973
• Israeli Arabs and Jews unite for right of villagers to returnDaily World · 23 February 1973
• All 338 clippings from the 1970s →