Tightening the Noose

By William Drozdiak

The Israelis besiege Beirut to await a truce--or a showdown

As U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib and leaders of Lebanon's warring factions sought desperately to concoct a truce, the roar of tanks and the thump of artillery fire threatened to make a mockery of their efforts. The 60,000-strong Israeli force, still trying to consolidate its control over southern Lebanon, advanced to the outskirts of Beirut. There the Israelis linked up with Christian Phalangist allies to impose a stranglehold over 6,000 Palestinian guerrillas and 1,500 Syrian soldiers trapped inside the western part of the city.

The encirclement began when a tentative cease-fire between the P.L.O. and Israel broke down only nine hours after taking effect. As Israeli gunboats bombarded the mainland and F-15 and F-16 jets resumed their raids over Palestinian camps near Beirut, Israeli armored columns successfully challenged P.L.O. guerrillas and Lebanese Muslim militias for control of an important road junction at Khalde, six miles south of the capital's international airport. An Israeli convoy then rolled northeast through twisting mountain passages toward the strategic Beirut-Damascus highway.

Within hours, dozens of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked a few hundred yards from the Presidential Palace in Baabda, five miles southeast of Beirut. Looking dazed but delighted, Israeli troops were hailed as heroic liberators by the Christian residents, who showered them with rice, flowers and candy. Local merchants calculated a rate of exchange between Israeli shekels and Lebanese pounds (4.3 to 1) as the arriving soldiers queued up to buy souvenirs or get haircuts. One Israeli admired the local begonias and explained how just a few days earlier he was cultivating his own garden on a kibbutz. "I am amazed to be here," he said. "I never thought we would go past Sidon."

After discussing strategy with Phalangist leaders over tea at Baabda's town hall, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon issued a call for Syria's 85th Brigade to withdraw from the Beirut vicinity and join the bulk of Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley to the east. Damascus abruptly rejected the demand, insisting that unlike the Israeli occupation troops, Syrian forces had been dispatched to Lebanon as part of an Arab peace-keeping contingent in 1976 with the approval of the local government. Sputtered an angry Syrian official: "We do not, I repeat, do not tolerate ultimatums from that mad dictator [Prime Minister Menachem] Begin."

The Syrian rebuff effectively ended a tenuous four-day truce between the two armies. Heading north from their fortified positions in Baabda, Israeli armor cut the Beirut-Damascus highway just west of Jamhur, less than a mile from Syrian tank and infantry posts. By seizing Beirut's surrounding hilltops, the Israelis choked off all main supply and exit routes for the Syrian and Palestinian units remaining in the capital.

Just south of Beirut, the Israelis slowly began to tighten the noose around Palestinian defenses, establishing commanding positions above the city's airport, east of the runways. Backed by Israeli artillery barrages, Christian Phalangist forces on Wednesday captured a Palestinian stronghold on the science campus of the Lebanese University at Shuweifat. Israeli officers denied that their commandos were involved. "The Christians are doing the fighting," explained an Israeli colonel. "We are just looking."

By late in the week, the surviving core of the Palestinian guerrilla army was completely surrounded in West Beirut. Phalangist guides directed Israeli armor through the streets of East Beirut, not far from the capital's so-called Green Line dividing the Christian and Muslim sectors. Israeli gunboats patrolled the port and coastline, thwarting nearly all naval traffic. To the south, invasion troops occupied a wide arc, stretching from the Khalde road junction into Beirut's surrounding hills, merging with Phalangist forces and blocking any escape.

Nonetheless, Palestinian forces doggedly continued to challenge the Israeli occupation troops. Some 300 P.L.O. holdouts barricaded themselves inside the Ein el Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon and pelted Israeli positions with mortar fire before being flushed out. Other P.L.O. guerrillas, however, were said to have found refuge in the hills. Admitted an Israeli officer: "The territory has not yet been sterilized."

In West Beirut, P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat tried to galvanize his beleaguered forces for a last stand. Speaking on the Voice of Palestine radio station in an angry, desperate tone, Arafat vowed to turn Beirut into "the graveyard of the invader and the Stalingrad of the Arabs." Arafat and other top P.L.O. officials spurned calls to surrender their arms in exchange for safe escort out of Beirut. Young guerrillas bulldozed walls of red clay to serve as barricades and cut holes in street pavements to plant mines. Despite the overwhelming odds, Palestinian morale seemed high. Said a P.L.O. major: "We have grown up fighting in the streets of Beirut. It is what we do best."

On a butte with a panoramic view of the city and its suburbs, the Israelis set up new headquarters in a large Catholic high school. While most soldiers relaxed by shopping, sunbathing or enjoying the beautiful if war-pocked landscape, some Israelis pondered the grim vision of more death and destruction if negotiations fail and the final battle for Beirut takes place. "We do not want to go in there," sighed an infantryman, gazing down on the capital. "We want to go home." Across the Green Line in West Beirut, a few miles away, a Palestinian guerrilla took another view. "We will fight here to the last man if we must," he said. "We have nowhere else to go." --By William Drozdiak. Reported by David Halevy/Baabda and Roberto Suro/Beirut

With reporting by David Halevy, Roberto Suro

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