Tanks Lead Shia Drive Against PLO in Lebanon

Shia Muslims launched repeated tank-led assaults Tuesday in a battle with Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas that has killed more than 400 people in nine days, police and the combatants reported.

Police said 12 Palestinian children who had inadequate medical attention died in a refugee camp in south Lebanon that Shia militiamen have besieged for two months. They said the Shia Muslims would not let a Red Cross convoy into the camp.

Authorities said 43 people were killed and 75 wounded Tuesday in the fighting in Beirut and south Lebanon.

Also on Tuesday, a one-day general strike called by several trade unions to protest the high inflation rate and speedy devaluation of the Lebanese currency paralyzed most areas in Lebanon. The Lebanese pound has depreciated by 300% this year.

In a rare show of solidarity, Christian and Muslim areas alike closed down their schools, shops, banks and businesses. Beirut International Airport also joined in the strike and rescheduled all flights for today.

Tank Fire Effective

Statements from the PLO said its forces held out against tank-led onslaughts by the Shia militia Amal in Beirut and at the southern port cities of Sidon and Tyre.

Amal tank crews destroyed several strategic PLO firing positions on the outskirts of Chatilla with cannon fire, police said. The Palestinian refugee camp is one of three on Beirut’s southern fringe.

Authorities said 15 Palestinians died “due to the lack of medicines and proper medical care” at Tyre’s Rashidiyeh refugee camp, which has has been under siege for two months. Twelve of the victims were children, the report said.

Police said 25 mortar shells hit the heart of Sidon early Tuesday, wounding four people and damaging buildings in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city of 200,000. They said the source of the mortar fire could not be determined.

Palestinians defending the Chatilla and Borj el Brajne camps in Beirut fired mortar rounds and armor-piercing shells from recoilless artillery at Shia units that poured tank fire into the two shantytowns, police reported.

They said 31 people were killed and 52 wounded in the Beirut fighting, which spilled into the crowded Shia slums around the camps.

Twelve people were reported killed and 23 wounded at the strategic Christian hill town of Maghdousheh, which overlooks two Palestinian camps outside Sidon.

According to police estimates, more than 400 people have been killed and at least 1,000 wounded in the battle that began Nov. 24 when guerrillas broke out of the Sidon camps to attack Amal guns in the heights. The fighting soon spread northward to Beirut.

PLO Fighters ‘Holding Fast’

Nabih Berri’s Amal militia has fought the Palestinians sporadically since May, 1985, trying to keep PLO chief Yasser Arafat from regaining the Lebanese power base he lost with the 1982 Israeli invasion. More than 1,300 people have been killed and at least 3,500 wounded.

One PLO statement Tuesday said: “Our fighters are holding fast in Chatilla despite repeated efforts by Amal to overrun the camp.” It said that four tanks were knocked out during an “abortive assault” and that PLO forces “shelled Amal bases and supply routes.”

A statement from Amal accused the Palestinians of “indiscriminately shelling” Shia slums around the Beirut camps.

Police said six buildings on Chatilla’s northern edge were destroyed by Amal cannon fire.

“This stripped the guerrillas of vital firing nests used to hit advancing tanks,” said a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The PLO claims Lebanese army units have joined the battle alongside Amal.

Berri’s militia has about 50 Soviet-built T-54 tanks supplied by Syria. The Lebanese army uses U.S.-built M-48s, which also have been seen attacking the Beirut camps.