Syria Troops on Alert as Israel Advances Into South Lebanon : Beirut Appeals to U.N. About Search for Arab Guerrillas

Israeli troops hunting Muslim and Palestinian guerrillas advanced deep into southern Lebanon today, sparking an alert among Syrian troops nearby and a complaint to the United Nations.

Israeli tanks pushed to within a few miles of Syrian troops, reinforcing heavily armed Israeli soldiers as they searched for Palestinian guerrillas.

Timur Goksel, spokesman for the U.N. force in south Lebanon, said it appeared that 1,500 to 2,000 Israeli troops were involved in the operation. Israeli sources said fewer than 1,000 soldiers were taking part.

4 Villages Besieged

Security sources in the Christian town of Marjayoun said Israeli troops and South Lebanon Army militiamen were besieging four villages about six miles beyond Israel’s southern Lebanon border “security zone” and had also raided four villages inside the zone.

They rounded up more than 2,000 people for investigation and detained scores of men, the sources said. Many residents had fled into nearby mountains.

Witnesses said troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships stormed houses in the villages of Ain Aata, Libbaya, Mimess and Kfar on the rugged slopes of Mt. Hermon.

South Lebanon Army sources in Marjayoun said the force found ammunition and weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers, in many Ain Aata houses as well as plans for attacking South Lebanon Army positions in the security zone.

The Israeli-South Lebanon Army force met no resistance from local guerrillas as it unleashed a barrage of artillery fire on surrounding hilltops to deter an attack.

A police spokesman, who cannot be identified under standing regulations, said the Syrian command ordered its estimated 16,000 troops in the Bekaa Valley north of the village on “maximum alert” shortly after the Israeli operation started.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir indicated that his government is not seeking a confrontation with Syria.

“I don’t think there is such a danger. . . , “ he told Israel radio today.

Protest With U.N.

Lebanon said it will lodge a protest with the United Nations.

“The Israelis claim it is a search operation, but it is much more than that. The Israelis are terrorizing the population. They are paralyzing civil life and wreaking havoc,” acting Prime Minister Salim Hoss told Reuters in Beirut.

The White House today expressed concern about the increasing level of violence in Lebanon and called for withdrawal of all foreign forces.

”. . . The United States continues to support Lebanese unity, sovereignty and independence and the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the extension of central government authority throughout Lebanon,” presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

The incursion into Lebanon coincided with another surge of violence in the occupied West Bank in which troops shot and killed three Palestinian protesters and wounded several others, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.