The New York Times · 8 January 1976

CP-1976-024

Palestinians and Leftist Factions Open an Offensive in Beirut

By JAMES M. MARKHAM

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Transcribed from the clipping

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 7—After a bombardment of Christian positions by rockets and mortars, Palestinian guerrillas and their leftist allies today opened an offensive in the eastern suburbs of Beirut, reportedly seizing sections of one small Christian suburb.

The Christian right-wing Phalangist Party, which had blockaded the heavily armed refugee camp of Tell Zaatar and neighboring Moslem quarters for two days, acknowledged that the attackers had moved into the Horj Tabet quarter.

A spokesman for the Phalangists said Palestinian guerrillas had occupied two hospitals in the quarter and the villa of a Christian millionaire, Tanois Saba. The spokesman said that the captured quarter of Horj Tabet, which is on high ground overlooking Tell Zaatar, had been held by Lebanese security forces.

He said that at 12:30 P.M. the Christian rightists began a counteroffensive for the high ground and that “the fighting is still continuing.” A Palestinian spokesman acknowledged that guerrillas were fighting alongside Lebanese leftists. But he asserted that the attack was defensive, intended to break a blockade on food imposed by Christians.

“Most of the fighters are Lebanese because the hungriest are Lebanese,” he said, adding that the camp of Tell Zaatar had stocks of food but that the Moslem shantytowns did not. Unofficial reports said that 22 armed men had been killed and 44 wounded in the fighting in the suburbs. But it was believed that the toll of casualties was higher.

A spokesman for Wafa, the Palestinian press service, said that the guerrillas involved in the offensive were from a “broad spectrum” of Palestinian organizations. In the past, notably in the battle for Beirut’s luxury hotels late in October, major Palestinian guerrilla groups supported leftist and Moslem Lebanese factions against the Christians.

But today was the first time that Palestinians openly acknowledged involvement in the factional strife in Lebanon in the last nine months. Some accounts said that hundreds of armed men had been thrown into the battle in a stretch of poor suburbs between the Beirut River and the steep hills to the east.

At least two armored personnel carriers manned by Lebanese security troops were reported to have been destroyed by the assault force, which used rockets, mortars, machine guns and antiaircraft guns.

In the wake of the offensive, exchanges of rocket and mortar fire spread along Beirut’s so-called “confrontation line,” which runs from the Damascus Highway to the charred downtown section of the city. But the focus of the fighting appeared to remain in the suburbs. The largely Christian quarter of Sin el-Fil was reported to be under intense shelling tonight.

The Phalangists contend that the Moslems want to link the Tell Zaatar area with the Moslem quarter of Nabaa, which lies on the other side of Sin el-Fil. The Phalangists were reported to have attacked the Karantina port area, while Moslem forces were reported to be advancing from the suburb of Chiyah into the neighboring Christian stronghold of Ain el-Rummaneh.

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