Almond-Blossom Battles

In the foothills of Lebanon's Mount Hermon last week, the quiet of almond-blossom time was shattered by the whine of jets, the clatter of tank treads and the thunder of explosions. Israel continued its attacks on Palestinian guerrilla bases inside Lebanon (TIME, March 6), and the fighting there indirectly led to a skirmish on the Syrian border and at least temporarily deprived the fedayeen of one more base of operation against Israel.

The battles began when Israeli troops, in reprisal for the deaths of six people at fedayeen hands, attacked guerrilla bases in "Fatahland" between the Hasbani River and Lebanon's Syrian border. The raids were almost surgical, reported TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott after a visit to the village of Rashaya al Foukhar, one of five communities that the Israelis occupied overnight. Alerted by the sound of a spotter plane and the thud of incoming artillery rounds, the 500 Christian villagers had taken refuge in their church. Israeli soldiers dynamited 15 houses, twelve of which had been occupied by guerrillas, and bulldozed dirt roads to permit a speedy return if necessary. They also left behind warnings in Arabic: "If you don't want your villages and homes harmed, you must keep the terrorists from them." In all, Israel reported some 50 houses demolished and from 50 to 80 guerrillas killed during the raids.

The immediate effect of the raids was to create a crisis in Lebanon, whose fragile Christian-Moslem political entente was shattered two years ago following similar Israeli raids and a Lebanese army crackdown on guerrilla activities. Under an agreement following that flare-up, Lebanon had let the fedayeen more or less take over Fatahland in return for pledges not to move into the villages or fire into Israel from Lebanese territory.

Decisive Move. That agreement obviously no longer held, and Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh. after successfully petitioning the United Nations Security Council to censure Israel, held worried meetings at his Baabda Palace residence outside Beirut. "Instead of wasting our energies in shouting and unproductive chanting," Franjieh finally suggested, "why don't we give blood generously to the Red Cross so we may care for our casualties." In a more decisive move, Lebanese troops moved into Fatahland to police and contain the fedayeen.

Many of the 5,000 guerrillas estimated to have been in the area retreated into the wooded borderlands near Syria. Soon fighting shifted to Syria's Golan Heights, overlooking Israel. For the first time in 21 months, in support of ground fighters, obsolescent Syrian MIG-17s either strafed Israeli positions, as Damascus had it, or dumped their bombs in a field, as the Israelis reported. The fighting was brief; with its capital of Damascus dangerously close to the present ceasefire line--only 30 miles separated them --Syria has good reason not to let such battles escalate. Even so, the guerrillas may now attempt to continue the fighting, both to revenge last week's attacks and to influence municipal elections that will be held late this month in Palestinian towns on the occupied West Bank. "Violence can only lead to violence," lamented Jerusalem's Arab-language newspaper AI Quds, "which itself begets further violence."

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