Israel battles a shadowy enemy

Monday, September 15, 1997

By Barbara Demick INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

AYTA AL JABAL, Lebanon -- They are everywhere, and they are nowhere.
They may be the well-dressed men squeezed into a passing Mercedes, or the smooth-shaven boys on Yamaha motorcycles. Perhaps they are the doctors in the white stucco medical clinic in the next village.

The Islamic guerrillas waging a deadly war of attrition against Israel in southern Lebanon do not advertise their presence. Instead, they are thoroughly integrated and assimilated into mountain villages. That makes it maddeningly difficult for Israel to root them out or to prevent them from firing rockets into northern Israel.

As more and more Israeli soldiers die at the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas, the debate over Israel's role in southern Lebanon has intensified. Senior Israeli political figures, including Ariel Sharon, the architect of its Lebanon policy in the early 1980s, have called for reconsidering the occupation of South Lebanon.

``Our own mini-Vietnam,'' Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz, called the Lebanon situation in a hard-hitting editorial last week that ridiculed the army for recent disasters, including a failed commando raid Sept. 5 in which 12 Israelis died in an ambush along the Lebanon coast. Israel now finds itself negotiating with Hezbollah for the return of the commandos' remains.
Two Israel soldiers were killed yesterday by a roadside bomb in southern Lebanon. The deaths brought to 33 the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon this year.
``The myth of the [ Israeli army ] being the ultimate combination between Einstein's brain and Samson's brawn is no more. . . . Suddenly we discovered that the legend of Jewish genius sometimes stops at the gates of an army base,'' the Haaretz editorial said.
Military analysts say the Israeli army, as a conventional fighting force, is at a disadvantage fighting a guerrilla war -- particularly against an opponent that knows every ridge and wadi of southern Lebanon's rugged landscape.
Even the Israeli army's chief spokesman, Brig. Gen. Oded Ben-Ami, conceded in a recent briefing for foreign journalists that Israel was not hopeful of a definitive military victory in southern Lebanon.
``I don't think there is any military solution. The only solution is a political one,'' Ben-Ami said.
Although a sideshow to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Lebanon situation was discussed Friday when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright met in Damascus with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Syria occupies eastern Lebanon and supports Hezbollah -- as well as the military wing of the Amal movement, a more moderate Islamic resistance movement -- as a means of pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights.
Despite the unpopularity of the Lebanon war in Israel, polls show that few Israelis support a unilateral withdrawal without some security guarantees -- especially given that Hezbollah has twice in the last month fired Katyusha rockets across the border at the Israeli city of Kiryat Shemona.
As the conflict drags on, most military analysts conclude that time favors Hezbollah. Timur Goksel, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping forces in the region and an 18-year veteran of the conflict, says Hezbollah has become more wily and better equipped. ``They have some military intelligence. They are bringing in better-educated people. They are very sensitive politically,'' Goksel said.
In contrast to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which used to advertise its presence with flags and checkpoints, Goksel says Hezbollah maintains no permanent camps or training centers in southern Lebanon, making the guerrillas an elusive target. ``It is all very secretive. The Hezbollah wear regular clothes. Most of them don't have beards, which used to be considered their trademark. Nobody knows when they are coming to the village, until suddenly you're in the middle of a war,'' Goksel said.
Goksel estimates that there are 400 to 450 hard-core Hezbollah guerrillas operating in southern Lebanon, but that they can call on a pool of 3,000 to 4,000 supporters at any given time.

In many villages, Hezbollah leaders ingratiate themselves by providing food and other humanitarian aid to the poor, predominantly Shiite Muslim population. In Brashit, a village at the edge of the Israeli-occupied zone, the most modern building in town is the medical clinic built by Hezbollah, which last week was decorated with colorful streamers from its grand opening. Down the hill is another new structure, the elementary school run by Hezbollah. Unlike in Beirut, where Hezbollah has offices and a political party, the guerrillas keep a low profile in the front-line villages, where locals refer to them simply as the resistance. One Lebanese businessman, who asked not to be quoted by name, said he knew many parents who never found out their sons had joined up with the guerrillas until their bodies were brought home.

In Ayta Al Jabal, a mountain village of about 400 people at the edge of the Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon, villagers blame the Israelis for the periodic bursts of shelling and the unremitting sense of unease. Farmers fear straying out on the slopes to pick olives. The village can't get workers to build its new school because of the danger.

Their complaints are similar to those of civilians living in northern Israel, which has come under periodic attack by Hezbollah guerrillas firing Katyusha rockets. ``As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Our children now grow up thinking about the resistance, training to fight Israel from the time they are 5 years old,'' said Mohamed Rashid, the muhktar, or mayor, of Ayta Al Jabal. ``It is not that the people want war with Israel or the Jews -- they just want them out of here.''

Israel mounted attacks inside southern Lebanon in 1978 to stop commando raids into northern Israel by the PLO. The PLO's military units were driven from Lebanon in Israel's 1982 invasion, and Israel pulled out of the country in 1985 except for the so-called security zone. The Iranian-funded Hezbollah replaced the PLO in the mid-1980s as Israel's main adversary in southern Lebanon. Ever since, they've waged a slow, simmering border war with a constant stream of tit-for-tat violence punctuated by an occasional disaster.

So far, 1997 has been the costliest year for Israel in a decade, with more than 100 soldiers killed. Seventy-three were killed in a midair collision of two military helicopters in February in northern Israel, near the border. Five Israeli soldiers burned to death Aug. 28 in a brush fire that was apparently ignited by their own artillery. According to Israeli television reports, after the fire started, the victims were refused permission by their superiors to flee the advancing flames.

In recent operations, Hezbollah has cooperated with the military wing of Amal, a movement with which it frequently clashed in the past. Also, the growing opposition to the Israeli presence has attracted a small but significant number of Christians -- unlike in the past, when Christians often sided with Israel.

Israel's security zone is about nine miles wide in southern Lebanon. It is patrolled by an estimated 1,000 Israeli soldiers and 2,500 Lebanese who fight for Israel under the banner of the Southern Lebanese Army. The SLA is a ragged-looking bunch, bare-chested soldiers in bunkers cobbled together from empty oil drums and plastic crates. Military analysts say poor morale in their ranks has reduced their effectiveness.

George Haddad, 53, a woodworker and church leader in the village of Safed, said the entire population of southern Lebanon is looking forward to an Israeli withdrawal.

``Everybody feels the same way -- Christians and Muslims. We need the Israelis to go away, for the Syrians to go away so that the Lebanese can solve their own problems,'' Haddad said. He is hopeful, he said, that Albright will bring about some agreement between Israel and Syria that will facilitate a withdrawal in the near future.

``Ins'hallah, God willing. The time is right,'' Haddad said. ``Then again, when the civil war started in Lebanon, we thought it would last only one or two months. In fact, it has been 20 years. Maybe it will still take some time.''


Philadelphia Online -- The Philadelphia Inquirer, Page One -- Copyright Monday, September 15, 1997

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