Israeli Troops Begin to Pull Back in Lebanon

About 1,000 Israeli troops who had crossed into southern Lebanon less than 24 hours earlier began to pull back toward the border Tuesday after what U.N. and Israeli military sources described as a limited search operation to flush out Palestinian guerrillas.

Syria put its troops nearby in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on high alert, but senior Israeli officials sought to minimize the danger of a clash. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said the Israeli troops got no closer than “tens of kilometers” to the Syrian lines.

Gen. Yossi Peled, head of the Israel Defense Forces Northern Command, commented, “I don’t think we have to be worried too much, because I am sure that the Syrians already know exactly what we mean by this operation.”

Peled, interviewed by Israel Radio, added: “The way we control our forces here, I don’t think there is any danger of a conflict between us and Syria.”

The Israeli force spent a second night in the area Tuesday, but a senior military source said that most of the troops are expected back in Israel before a news conference that the army has scheduled for this afternoon in order to explain the operation.

No Reports of Casualties

Spokesmen for the Israeli army and the U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said they had no reports of casualties or resistance as the Israeli troops carried out what military sources in Tel Aviv described as a “knock-on-the-door search operation.” At least eight Lebanese villages were included.

An Israel Radio journalist accompanying the force reported Tuesday night that, up to that point, the operation had been brought off “without incident or clashes with anyone.”

The area involved is just northeast of Metulla, in the western foothills of Mt. Hermon near where the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders meet.

A UNIFIL spokesman said the Israelis had searched four villages in the U.N. area of operations and had withdrawn toward the south by mid-afternoon Tuesday. He identified the villages as Chebaa, Hebbariye, Kfar Chouba and Kfar Hamam, all populated for the most part by Lebanese Sunni Muslims.

Lebanese sources said that about 500 troops, flown in by helicopter before dawn to an area just north of the UNIFIL zone, had searched the villages of Ain Aata, Kfair, Khalouat and Mimes.

Bombing Reports Discounted

The UNIFIL spokesman discounted earlier reports that the Israelis were bombarding villages in southwestern Lebanon, around Tyre and Sidon. A senior Israeli military source described air and sea activity around those cities Monday night as a diversion related to the search operation that at that time was about to begin well to the east.

The Israeli incursion drew criticism from Washington and the United Nations.

The White House, in a statement read by spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, deplored the increasing violence in Lebanon and said “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.” The statement did not mention the incursion or Israel by name, but Fitzwater, in response to reporters’ questions, said it was a response to the Israeli action.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar criticized the incursion as “a further violation of Lebanese sovereignty.” Israeli officials said in announcing the sweep that it was brought on by “the growing number of terrorist attempts to infiltrate into Israel for the purpose of committing murder and terrorist attacks for (hostage) bargaining purposes.”

The area involved was the site of several recent infiltration attempts into Israel, including one on April 26 in which an Israeli battalion commander and one other soldier were killed and two others wounded. Six Arab guerrillas were killed in that incident and another died in the same area the next day.

Largest Sweep in 2 Years

The sweep under way Tuesday was believed to be Israel’s largest military operation north of the border in more than two years. U.N. sources said an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Israeli troops were involved, along with units of the allied, mostly Lebanese Christian militia known as the South Lebanon Army.

Israeli military sources said the U.N. estimate was too high by half and suggested that it might include about 800 soldiers--most of whom were not involved in the search operation--who are permanently stationed in the Israeli “security zone” north of the Israeli border.

A deputy Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Col. Ranaan Gissin, said in an interview that the troops were “brought in really to secure the area where they’re doing the searches, not to have any offensive capability or to attack.”

“This is not an attack,” he emphasized. “This is a search operation.”