Israeli ‘Iron Fist’ Policy in Lebanon Intensified

The Israeli army imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on villages throughout much of southern Lebanon on Tuesday as it intensified the new “iron fist” policy aimed at curbing resistance to its continued occupation of the region.

The army also announced in leaflets dropped by helicopter on villages south of the Litani River that it is forbidden to travel in the area by motorcycle or alone in any vehicle. Any car found unattended by the roadside will be immediately blown up, the leaflets said.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset (Parliament) Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that since the new “iron fist” policy was instituted a week ago, 15 Lebanese have been killed, 22 wounded and 19 expelled from the area still under Israeli control. He described those killed and wounded as terrorists and said those deported had incited local residents against the Israeli Defense Forces.

20,000 Troops Remain

Israel completed the first stage of a planned three-phase withdrawal from Lebanon on Feb. 17, but up to 20,000 of its troops continue to occupy nearly one-fourth of the country.

The army intensified actions against hostile, mostly Shia Muslim villages in southern Lebanon last week after a spate of guerrilla attacks that left seven Israeli soldiers dead and about 20 wounded in a 10-day period earlier this month. The army has raided about a dozen villages since the new policy went into effect and arrested more than 150 residents.

The latest raid came Tuesday, when troops surrounded the village of Sarifa, about 12 miles east of the port city of Tyre. Military sources in Jerusalem said troops found grenades, ammunition, and Soviet-made Kalashnikov assault rifles during a house-to-house search and arrested “several suspects” thought to have been involved in planning and implementing attacks against the Israelis.

A U.N. spokesman in southern Lebanon said six residents of the village were detained.

Rabin said that since the tough new policy was adopted, no Israelis have been killed or wounded in the area where most of the earlier casualties occurred. Although he said the policy has reduced the “freedom of action of those who hit at us,” the defense minister warned that there is no total answer to such attacks.

‘Iron Fist’ to Continue

Rabin pledged that the “iron fist” policy will continue and said that Israeli forces will destroy every home in which arms, explosives or “terrorists” are found.

The requirement that all cars on roads in southern Lebanon have at least two passengers is believed aimed at decreasing the danger of suicide car bombings. An underground Shia Muslim group in Beirut warned early Tuesday that it would launch seven suicide attacks against U.S. and Israeli interests unless Israel stops its “massacres” of residents of the region.

Ten Israelis were wounded Feb. 5 near Borj el Chimali when a suicide bomber drove an automobile into the midst of an Israeli convoy and detonated a bomb.

The ban on motorcycles is apparently aimed at a favorite method the Lebanese have used to warn of impending Israeli raids on hostile villages. Motorcyclists, traveling off the main roads, have acted as an early warning system, according to sources in the area.

In another development, the Israeli army announced that it will bar foreign journalists based in Beirut from entering the Israeli-occupied area of southern Lebanon. The action, news agencies reported, formalizes and puts into writing restrictions on press coverage within the occupied zone that the Israelis have attempted to enforce for months.