Press Telegram · 10 April 1973

CP-1973-030

Commandos Hit Guerrilla Camps

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Transcribed from the clipping

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli commandos invaded the heart of the Lebanese capital early today, killing three Palestinian guerrilla leaders in their apartments and attacking refugee camps. It was thought at first that the raid was in retaliation for Arab attacks Monday in Cyprus on the residence of the Israeli ambassador and an Israeli airliner.

But an authoritative Lebanese source said there were indications that preparations had been made by an advance party that came to Beirut several days ago. Al Fatah, the biggest Palestinian guerrilla organization, said the victims included its No. 2 man, Mohammed Yussef Najjar, known as Abu Yussef. He was one of the founders of Al Fatah.

The Lebanese Defense Ministry said 11 persons were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the strike that began shortly after midnight. The statement indicated the casualty total might rise. The Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. David Elazar, said in Tel Aviv that two Israelis were killed in the 2½-hour raid and two were wounded.

He warned that Israel may hit Beirut again, saying: “It is impossible to honor the sovereignty of Lebanon and its capital when there is complete freedom for the terrorists, their bases and commands in Lebanese territory.” Another group of Israeli commandos blew up a garage in Sidon, on the coast 24 miles south of Beirut, but there were no casualties there.

The Israelis said the garage was used by guerrillas. President Suleiman Franjieh held an emergency session of the Lebanese Cabinet, and a protest to the U.N. Security Council was believed imminent.

The Israelis, some dressed in civilian clothes and some in fatigue uniforms, apparently landed by helicopter at Ouzai, a village three miles south of Beirut, and split into two groups. Boarding unlicensed cars, one party headed for the center of the city and the apartments of the three Palestinian leaders. The other went to the ShatilaSabra refugee camp near the airport.

The Palestinian leaders lived in apartment buildings off Rue Verdun, in the center of the city. The raiders burst into these buildings, threw explosive charges and then stormed the men's apartments with machine guns blazing. Najjar's wife died as she tried to shield her husband's body.

The others killed were Kamal Adwan, who sources in Israel claimed was in charge of guerrilla operations in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, and Kamal Nasser, a leading Arab poet who was the spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Guerrillas at the Sabra camp, which houses 5,000 Palestinians, said at least 30 persons were killed and residents were searching the debris of blown up buildings for more bodies. One of the buildings attacked was the headquarters of the Maoist Popular Democratic Front. Al Fatah centers also were hit. Helicopters lifted the raiders back to Israel from Beirut.

Today, armored cars and soldiers with machine guns lined the Corniche, the wide Beirut avenue along the Mediterranean. Guerrillas in civilian clothes and camouflage fatigues and armed with bazookas, AK47 assault rifles, machine guns and pistols, emerged from the refugee camps onto the city's sidewalks.

Civilian cars were stopped at several checkpoints between the city center and the airport. Israeli forces had not struck at the Lebanese capital since December 1968, when airborne commandos hit the airport and blew up Arab airliners in retaliation for guerrilla forays. The last Israeli raid into Lebanon was Feb.

21, when seaborne commando units hit seven Arab guerrilla bases around the City of Tripoli and killed an estimated 50 Arabs. Israel claimed the Tripoli bases were training schools for Black September terrorists.

The raids today came about 12 hours after nine Arab guerrillas blew up the Israeli ambassador's apartment in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, and made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up an Israeli airliner at Nicosia airport.

How this transcription was made

No masthead on the cut. The paper is not named anywhere on the clipping, so 'Press Telegram' rests entirely on Maria's label. Worth a check before ingest: the Long Beach paper sets its own name hyphenated, 'Press-Telegram', and an unhyphenated spelling would enter the archive as a separate paper. — No printed date on the cut. The story says Israeli commandos struck 'early today' and that the raids 'came about 12 hours after' the Cyprus attacks, which it places on 'Monday'. April 9 1973 was a Monday, so an April 10 paper fits Maria's label, but nothing on the page states a date or a year. — The paper sets 'ShatilaSabra' as one word, without a space or hyphen — kept as printed. 'AK47' is set without a hyphen, also as printed. This is the whole of the article text on the cut. — Above the headline, underlined and in italic, runs the kicker 'Kill Three Palestinian Leaders'. It sits above the headline, not below it, so it is recorded here as a kicker and not as a deck.

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