Israeli Planes Raid Guerrillas In Lebanon

Compiled from Washington Post, New York Times, AP, UPI Wires

Transcribed from the clipping

“BEIRUT — Waves of Israeli fighter bombers smashed Palestinian refugee and guerrilla camps across Lebanon Wednesday in vengeance raids that killed at least 15 persons and seriously wounded scores of others.

The Israeli planes bombed, rocketed and machine-gunned seven target areas, including El Helewen, the largest refugee camp in Lebanon, a guerrilla training area on the outskirts of Beirut and small concentrations of guerrillas in the Arquob area of the slopes of Mount Hermon.

INITIAL unofficial reports indicated that the day’s final casualty total would be even higher than that of the Palestinian guerrilla attack on an Israeli school at Ma’alot Wednesday, which evidently provoked the wide-ranging aerial strikes Thursday. The toll of Israeli teenagers killed rose to 24 Thursday as two more students died from wounds.

Seventy Israeli youngsters were wounded and the three Arab gunmen holding them hostage were killed when Israeli troops stormed the Ma’alot school in a desperate rescue bid. Lebanese television reported 27 dead, 138 wounded and 20 others missing in the attacks.

An Israeli spokesman in Tel Aviv said civilian deaths could not be ruled out since the targets were near refugee camps.

The Lebanese defense ministry announced that 36 Israeli warplanes took part in the series of raids carried out for half an hour in the early afternoon, while Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was flying from Jerusalem to Damascus for more talks on a Syrian-Israeli disengagement of forces agreement.

The Israeli national radio reported that Prime Minister Golda Meir’s government had suggested to Kissinger a 10 day pause in his mission which is now approaching its point of decision after long talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad Thursday, in order to let Israel and Syria take stock and prove their peaceful intentions.

The report was denied by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman. After 7½ hours of talks with Assad, Kissinger said, ‘We made some progress, but we obviously have not reached an agreement.’ He and Assad had agreed to make last-minute ‘new approaches’ to break the deadlock between Israel and Syria over military disengagement in the Golan Heights.

Kissinger will discuss these with Israeli leaders later today. In Washington, the White House decried the ‘continuing cycles of violence’ in the Mideast. EYEWITNESSES to the raids said four of the American-manufactured Phantoms and Skyhawks returned at dusk to strike a second time at the Nabatiyah refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

Hardest hit was El Helweh, a sprawling camp of 20,000 persons located at the edge of the southern port town of Sidon. A doctor said 11 persons had arrived dead at the Sidon Hospital and scores more were being brought in with serious injuries.

ANNOUNCING the raids in Tel Aviv, an Israeli military spokesman said they had been aimed at guerrilla storehouses, workshops and training camps principally in the Nabatiyah, Sidon and Tyre areas. The Lebanese defense ministry announced a preliminary total of eight Lebanese civilian dead and 64 wounded. An incomplete count said there were 13 Palestinians killed and 70 wounded.

In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy warned Israel that its attacks against civilian targets in Lebanon will have ‘the gravest consequences.’”

Context added by this archive

The same Thursday as a Kansas paper that headed it Many Palestinians Killed In Israeli Revenge Raids. Here the object of the raid is guerrillas, and the Palestinian dead appear in the caption under the photograph instead.

Four counts of the dead are printed in one story and none is chosen: at least 15, then 27 from Lebanese television, then eight Lebanese civilians from the defense ministry, then an incomplete count of 13 Palestinians.

Cite this item

"Israeli Planes Raid Guerrillas In Lebanon," Tampa Bay Times, 17 May 1974. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1974-007. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1974-007