Border Strife Renews Fear in Both Lebanon and Israel

The refugees are on the move again in southern Lebanon, and fear has returned to the settlements of northern Israel in the wake of increased military action in the border area between the two countries.

More than a dozen Soviet-made Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon have landed in northern Galilee in recent days. Residents of at least seven Lebanese villages along the border have fled their homes for fear of massive retaliation by Israel and its South Lebanon Army militia allies.

Several hundred demonstrators at a U.N. outpost here protested earlier this week that they have already been evicted from their homes in Kounine, just this side of the international boundary, in what Israel calls a “security zone” patrolled by its Lebanese Christian militia proxies.

The flurry of military activity has raised the tension on both sides of the border to its highest level since shortly after Israel pulled most of its troops out of Lebanon last June, formally ending its three-year military occupation of southern Lebanon.

But even more ominous than the current fighting are longer-range developments that security sources and residents in both countries say could plunge southern Lebanon back into full-scale war.

One of those is the growing influence here of Iran and its local allies among Shia Muslim fundamentalists--an influence whose strength is evident in the Iranian flag that flies next to the banner of Amal, a Shia Muslim militia, at the entrance to the coastal city of Tyre just west of here.

The fundamentalists see the battle for southern Lebanon not simply as necessary to liberate a part of this country still under foreign control but as part of a holy war whose ultimate goal is Jerusalem.

Another long-term concern is the threatened cutoff of U.S. support for the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, an event that might imperil the entire peacekeeping operation.

“If UNIFIL were to leave, I’m sure the Palestinians would come back with cannons and Katyushas and the land will burn again,” said Abdul Majid Saleh, an Amal political officer in Tyre.

Also, some Israeli sources contend that the recent Syrian-sponsored peace agreement among various Lebanese factions in Beirut will only inflame the situation here as all sides turn their attention and their weapons to a struggle for influence in the south.

To be sure, a certain level of violence already has become the norm in Lebanon.

Security sources in the south say there have been more than 100 attacks a month, on the average, by Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas against Israeli and South Lebanon Army troops in the security zone, which ranges from six to 10 miles wide across its length, since last summer.

Israeli Rationale

Israel maintains that it must retain military control over the zone to protect its northern border against hostile infiltration. Israel launched its so-called Peace For Galilee invasion of Lebanon in 1982 ostensibly to protect northern Israeli settlements, initiating what quickly turned into the most controversial war in its history.

What returned the Lebanon issue to the headlines was a single Katyusha rocket that landed in the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, in the Galilee panhandle, on Jan. 2. No one was hurt, but several cars and buildings were damaged, and for the first time in more than three years, residents headed for the bomb shelters.

Actually, at least a dozen other Katyushas fell harmlessly on unpopulated areas in the northern Galilee in a period of several days, according to residents. “We act tough, but we’re afraid,” one resident confided the other day.

In Jerusalem, the government responded by scheduling a special Cabinet meeting on the security of the north. At least two top officials called for Israel to expand the “security zone” farther into Lebanese territory--a move that critics charged would suck the country right back into the Lebanese quagmire.

No ‘One-Sided Terror’

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected the proposed security zone expansion, but two days ago, during a tour of the Galilee settlement of Goren, he warned that if the peace of northern Israel is violated, “there will be no normal life in south Lebanon--if there will be any civilian life there. We will not tolerate one-sided terror.”

Security sources in southern Lebanon contend the Katyusha attacks were an aberration related to the Jan. 1 anniversary of the first military action by the mainstream Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. And there have been no new rockets in the last few days.

However, what was clear during a return visit to the area by journalists, after a three-month absence, is that it is at least in a state of flux.

During the 15-mile drive north from U.N. headquarters at Naqoura, just north of the Israeli border, to Tyre, three American reporters encountered eight checkpoints--one manned by the Israeli Defense Forces and their South Lebanon Army militia allies, three by UNIFIL, one by the Lebanese army and three by Amal.

Artillery Response

In Naqoura, U.N. sources said that Israeli artillery as well as South Lebanon Army guns had responded to the recent Katyusha attacks. Most of the return fire has been directed at the suspected Katyusha launching sites, the sources said, but in at least one case the Israeli-backed militia shelled civilians in the village of Tibnin.

The sources said that hundreds of southern Lebanese, fearing further retaliation, have fled their homes.

On Tuesday, Rabin said that “Palestinian terrorist organizations supported and encouraged by Syria” were believed mainly to blame for the Katyushas that fell on the Galilee. Also involved, he said, were Shia Muslim extremists connected with Hezbollah (Party of God), a pro-Iranian organization, as well as members of the more moderate Amal.

The majority of south Lebanon’s residents are Shia Muslims, although many Christians live within the security zone and there are Palestinians in refugee camps around Tyre and Sidon.

Israeli and independent security sources in the south said that more radical elements from farther north have moved into southern Lebanon in recent weeks.

Fundamentalist Influence

There are constant reminders of the growing fundamentalist influence in the south, despite the fact that the moderate Amal is ostensibly the strongest force among southern Shias.

Kadado, formerly Tyre’s biggest liquor store, now sells only soft drinks in the wake of a city-wide ban on sales and public consumption of alcohol. Amal ordered that there be no New Year’s Eve parties this year, a local journalist said.

In Tyre and especially in smaller neighboring towns such as Bazouriye, the majority of women now wear head scarves in public, and a clearly growing number are garbed in the full-length Islamic chador. Sources in southern Lebanon--even sources within Amal--differ over how significant the fundamentalist trend is.

“The relation between us and the Iranian Islamic government is the relation between a mother and a son,” said Amal’s military leader in southern Lebanon, Mohammed Abdel Hassan, in an interview here.

Only Humanitarian Help

Asked if Iran is giving military or political support to the Shia resistance movement, Hassan said that “so far, the Iranian government help is only humanitarian.”

Hassan and U.N. sources confirmed that a joint Amal-Hezbollah delegation visited Iran a few days ago on what was described as a political, not a military, mission.

Amal political chief Saleh, however, cautioned, “Don’t make a big deal out of this Iranian thing.” And an independent security source in the south said he thought that Amal is only paying lip service to the fundamentalists in the competition for popular support.

Hassan and Saleh both stressed that for the moment, at least, Amal’s only aim is to drive Israel and its allies out of the security zone. “As for the liberation of the Islamic land of Israel, we can’t do it alone,” said Saleh.

Differences on UNIFIL

The Amal leaders joined other Lebanese officials in condemning U.S. plans to cut its funding of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, which they contend are a vital element in preventing even worse violence.

Israel has said publicly that it sees no need for the U.N. troops in Lebanon, and it has actively opposed the deployment of U.N. forces all the way south to the international border, replacing the South Lebanon Army.

Led by Sens. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), the Senate last month cut the $18-million U.S. contribution to UNIFIL from the budget, arguing as the Israelis do that the force does no good. The money amounts to about 20% of UNIFIL’s budget, and unless the White House finds some way to restore the money before April, when the cut would go into effect, it could jeopardize the force’s future.

Lebanese leaders say that Israel wants UNIFIL out only so that it can extend its own hold on southern Lebanon and eliminate the only independent agency monitoring Israeli actions and those of the South Lebanon Army.

The residents’ dependence on the U.N. troops for moral support as well as security duties was clear at the demonstration here by half a dozen busloads of displaced Kounine residents. They brought flowers for the local French UNIFIL commander and carried anti-Israeli banners.