Israeli Chief Seeks To Justify Deadly Military Offensive
An emotional Prime Minister Shimon Peres sought Monday to justify to Israel’s Knesset his costly and controversial 12-day-old military offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas. As Peres confronted dissent and doubt, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was shuttling between Damascus and Jerusalem trying to arrange a cease-fire.
“Only after it became clear to us that all other means, including diplomatic, were not proving effective, did we see that there was no other choice but to embark on an operation,” Peres told the Knesset, referring to Israel’s inability to stem the surge in Katyusha rocket attacks by Hezbollah.
Three members of Arab Israeli-dominated parties in the Knesset were ejected after calling Peres a “murderer” and “killer of innocent children.”
“This isn’t war. This is murder of civilians,” shouted Tamar Gozansky of the leftist Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, before being ordered out by the speaker. The assertion was a reference mainly to the deaths last week of between 75 and 100 Lebanese refugees at a U.N. peackeeper base in Qana, Lebanon, by Israeli artillery responding to a rocket attack from Hezbollah.
Peres, his voice breaking, said Israel has tried hard to protect civilians.
“It was not intentional,” he said of the Qana attack, expressing his regret. But he added: “The terrible tragedy of (Qana) and the suffering of Lebanon in general, are entirely the fault of the terrorist organizations, first and foremost, Hezbollah.”
Perhaps reflecting Israel’s frustration at being unable to curb Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, Israeli warplanes bombed a new target Monday, a base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine nine miles south of Beirut. The Palestinian members of the PFLP, like Hezbollah, oppose a Middle East peace with Israel.
It was the first attack in or near Beirut since Israeli jets rocketed Hezbollah strongholds in the south suburbs last Tuesday. At least 137 people have been killed, mostly Lebanese civilians, and 300 wounded since Israel launched its Operation Grapes of Wrath on April 11. Some 20,000 Israelis have fled their homes in northern Israel, and an estimated 400,000 civilians have fled their homes in southern Lebanon.
In Damascus, Christopher on Monday held his second set of meetings days with Syrian President Hafez Assad. After meeting Assad for five hours of what Christopher called “substantive and intensive” negotiations, he headed to Israel for talks with Peres today.