The New York Times · 13 August 1976

CP-1976-033

BEIRUT CHRISTIANS TAKE TELL ZAATAR AFTER LONG SIEGE

Palestinian Camp Is Seized in Hand-to-Hand Combat —Refugees Fleeing

By IHSAN A. HIJAZI

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Transcribed from the clipping

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 12—Right-wing Christians announced today that the Palestinian camp of Tell Zaatar had fallen to their forces, which had the camp under siege since mid-June. Palestinian sources were quoted by a left-wing radio station as having said that hand-to-hand fighting was still going on inside the camp.

Witnesses reported that thousands of civilians were streaming out of Tell Zaatar and surrendering to right-wing forces. Women and children were crying while old men stumbled over rubble-strewn streets carrying small bundles of belongings, the witnesses said, and added that they had seen few men of fighting age leaving the camp.

They reported that they had seen the bodies of 10 young men at the entrance of the camp. The fall of Tell Zaatar seemed bound to bring about a new deterioration in the 16-month civil war. An Arab diplomatic source commented: “Lebanon has taken yet another jump into the unknown.”

The leftist radio station accused the rightists of mistreating the civilians who were fleeing to seek refuge in the Moslem-controlled districts of western Beirut.

A right-wing radio station broadcast a communiqué by the Command of the Lebanese Forces, which comprises militias of the Christian political parties and breakaway Christian army troops, declaring the Tell Zaatar compound a prohibited area “because of the danger of mines planted in the camp, and to prevent the spread of epidemics.”

The right-wing radio reported that a rightist leader, Camille Chamoun, who is the Minister of Interior, met today with Dr. Hassan Sabry el-Kholy, the Arab League’s special envoy, and Jean Hoefliger, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Lebanon, and made arrangements for transporting the evacuees to the Moslem areas.

The leftists and the Palestinians accused the rightists of reneging on a promise they reportedly gave Dr. Kholy last night not to storm the camp and to allow a peaceful evacuation of the inhabitants.

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