Israeli Army Pulls Back in Lebanon : Ends Search for 2 Soldiers Kidnaped by Muslim Guerrillas

The Israeli Army announced late Saturday that it has ended a massive search in southern Lebanon for two soldiers captured by guerrillas and that its troops were pulling back to a self-proclaimed “security zone” along the international border.

“There were no clues any more for the search, so there was no reason to stay there,” said an army spokesman.

Timur Goksel, the spokesman for U.N. peacekeeping forces in the region, confirmed that Israeli units were moving south. But he said that as of Saturday night, the United Nations had no “firm indication of their destination or numbers. . . . In daylight time tomorrow, we’ll have to see their disposition before we can make an assessment of it.”

The two missing soldiers, Pvts. Yossi Fink and Rahamim Sheikh, were captured in an ambush near the village of Beit Yahoun at about noon on Monday. Israel responded within minutes by pouring hundreds of troops across the border.

The Islamic Resistance movement, an alliance of fundamentalist Shia Muslims which claimed responsibility for the abductions, first announced that it had moved the captives to a “safe location, well beyond Israel’s reach.” Then, on Wednesday, the group claimed to have executed one of the two after Israel ignored a deadline the front had set for pulling back its troops.

If Israeli officials have any independent information on the fate of the two missing soldiers, they are not making it public. Some military sources are convinced that bloodstains found at the site of the ambush indicate that the pair were killed Monday. These sources also say the claim that they had been captured alive is part of an elaborate charade intended to bolster the image of pro-Iranian Muslim factions in Lebanon.

Israel radio quoted military sources Saturday night as saying that the effort to find the missing men “will continue in other ways and using other methods.”

New Evidence Needed

An army spokesman interviewed by telephone said: “I think the next step is for our friends on the other side to show us where the two kids are.”

The army spokesman said some of the withdrawing troops will remain in the security zone while the rest return to their bases.

The security zone is an irregularly shaped area extending up to 10 miles into Lebanese territory and stretching from the Mediterranean to the slopes of Mt. Hermon on the Syrian border. Israel contends it must control the region to protect its northern settlements.

Israeli military sources said nine Katyusha rockets, apparently fired from the Tyre area, fell in northern Israel early Saturday, but there were no reports of casualties.

While the army clearly wanted to avoid any suggestion that it had called off the operation under pressure, it was criticized by, among others, the United States and the United Nations.

Anger among the mostly Shia Muslim inhabitants of the search area grew as the Israeli sweep brought normal life to a halt in a large section of southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River. And U.N. officials had warned that there was danger of the operation’s sparking large scale resistance in the region.

The army said it killed 13 guerrillas during the six-day operation. Two Israelis died in the sweep, the army said.

Troops conducted house-to-house searches in at least a score of villages north of the security zone, questioning some 3,000 villagers.

The army says it is still holding about 80 Lebanese prisoners, mostly members of the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah (Party of God).