Israeli Cabinet votes for withdrawal from Lebanon by July

Sari Bashi

Sunday, March 5, 2000 | 9 a.m.

JERUSALEM - Israel's Cabinet voted unanimously Sunday to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon by July, a pullback that would end an 18-year occupation.

A Cabinet statement said the government would endeavor to pull out "with an agreement," a reference to Prime Minister Ehud Barak's efforts to revive stalled peace talks with Syria, the main power in Lebanon.

Barak has said he prefers a withdrawal based on an agreement with Syria, but has been suggesting for some time that Israel might withdraw unilaterally.

The breakdown in peace talks with Syria in mid-January was followed within days by an escalation in guerrilla attacks on Israeli troops. Seven Israeli soldiers died within three weeks, stepping up public pressure on Barak to withdraw.

In the most recent Israeli casualty, a soldier was wounded by mortar fire on Saturday. He was in intensive care in a Haifa hospital.

Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes blasted suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon in retaliation for the attack, and there were unconfirmed reports that two Hezbollah guerrillas were killed in clashes with Israeli-allied militiamen.

"The Israel Defense Forces will deploy on the border with Lebanon by July 2000, and from there will secure the safety of the northern towns and villages," the Cabinet statement said.

"The government will act to ensure that this deployment will be carried out in the framework of an agreement," it said, but immediately added: "In the event that conditions will not be conducive to a ... deployment in the framework of an agreement, the government will convene at an appropriate time to discuss the method of implementation of the above-mentioned decision."

Barak won elections last year on a campaign of reviving long-moribund peace talks with the Syrians, and withdrawing from Lebanon within a year.

Withdrawing unilaterally would leave Israel's northern border vulnerable to attacks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas. But it would also deprive the Syrians of leverage in their efforts to recapture all of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa warned last week that Israel would "bear the consequences" of a unilateral withdrawal.

"They shouldn't use that possibility as a means of pressuring us," he told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper Thursday.

There have been signs that Israel's army command opposes a unilateral withdrawal.

Earlier in the day, the army chief of staff warned Israelis that violence could increase after a unilateral pullout.

Speaking to high school students near Tel Aviv, Shaul Mofaz said Israeli losses could include civilians as well as soldiers - something extremely rare in the 18 years of the army's presence in Lebanon.

"In such a situation - will the IDF be required to pay a heavier price than what we are paying today both in the lives of soldiers and in those of civilians?" Mofaz said. "That will be the $20,000 question."