Militiamen flee to Israeli border; two Lebanese killed

Stuart Pendleton

Monday, May 22, 2000 | 9:05 a.m.

TOURMOS CROSSING, Israeli-Lebanese border - Frightened Israeli-allied militiamen fled to Israel's border today and hundreds of Lebanese civilians rushed in after the pullout, throwing the area of south Lebanon that Israel has occupied for years into chaos. Two civilians were killed.

Witnesses said the civilians died when Israeli tanks and gunships opened fire on the crowd, while Israel said fire from its allied militiamen was apparently responsible.

The violence came weeks before Israel is to complete a pullout from the zone it set up as a buffer between Lebanon and northern Israeli towns. The pullout had been underway in bits and pieces, but intensified fighting - along with fears that Israel's allied militiamen are breaking ranks in panic - has led to calls to complete the withdrawal ahead of the July 7 deadline.

In southern Lebanon, the fleeing militiamen headed for the border and begged Israeli authorities for asylum after their outposts fell to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas who have fought to end Israel's 22-year military presence.

Four trucks and two jeeps carrying about a dozen members of the South Lebanon Army passed into Israel at this crossing point near the Israeli communal farm of Milkhia. The army spokesman's office said several militiamen and their families had requested asylum and were waiting on the Lebanese side of the border.

A senior Israeli defense official had said earlier that the militiamen would be granted a haven in Israel. But it was not immediately clear whether the dozens who arrived at the border today were granted asylum.

Israel has promised to ensure the security of the 2,500 South Lebanon Army militiamen who help its troops battle the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. But those guarantees have so far failed to materialize, and the militiamen, many of whom have been sentenced to death in absentia, fear retaliation by Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.

In the occupied zone, meanwhile, hundreds of civilians marched in to reclaim homes in six villages abandoned by the deserting militiamen.

Some 500 Lebanese civilians waving Hezbollah flags entered the village of Houla, prompting the last nine SLA militiamen in the village to desert their posts and defect to the Lebanese government, officials said on condition of anonymity.

Lebanese television broadcast footage of the Houla marchers embracing residents who had lived under the Israeli occupation. They were showered with rice and rose petals by the residents.

The march brought to 12 the number of villages in the zone that have been taken over by Hezbollah sympathizers in the past two days. It effectively puts the guerrillas on Israel's doorstep and threatens the Jewish state's plan to carry out an orderly withdrawal.

Israeli helicopter gunships and tanks fired on the marchers, apparently trying to scare them away from the area between Houla and Meiss el-Jabal, said Lebanese security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said shrapnel from tank shells killed two men. But in Jerusalem, an Israeli military spokesman said the two civilians were "apparently killed by South Lebanon Army fire."

For years, Israel and its allied militia have suffered casualties in almost constant low-level skirmishes with the guerrillas. Faced with growing public pressure to end the casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak pledged to withdraw Israel's troops.

He had hoped the pullout would come in conjunction with an agreement with Syria, the main power in Lebanon. But peace talks broke down in January, and neither Lebanon nor Syria is willing to guarantee an end to the guerrilla attacks without a peace treaty.

Barak, speaking at the border town of Zarit, warned that if Israel was attacked after its troops withdraw from south Lebanon, the army would launch a reprisal that would not be limited to the border area.

"It will be in entirely different places, which will prove very painful," Barak said. "I don't recommend to anyone in the area to provoke a response from Israel."

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh warned that guerrilla attacks after a withdrawal could prompt Israel to send forces back into Lebanon.

"If anyone wants to avert the need for us to go in again, the way to do that is to keep Hezbollah away from the border," he told Israel's army radio.

Sneh, speaking before the militiamen fled to the border, said that Israel was prepared to offer political asylum to militiamen and their families and had already put aside apartments to house them. But, he said, he didn't believe that turning them into refugees from their own country was the right solution.

"The door is open to anyone who fought with us, no matter what his rank, no matter what his position, but we do not encourage everyone to do so because ... it's very cruel to turn someone into a refugee," he told The Associated Press.

Israel is coordinating its withdrawal with the United Nations, which plans to expand UNIFIL, a peacekeeping force watching the border area since 1978. Hezbollah, however, is following hard on the heels of the Israeli pullback and inflicting heavy casualties on militiamen.

Today, the guerrillas attacked a series of pro-Israeli militia posts, wounding one militiaman with a roadside bomb at Beit Lif village, two miles north of the Israeli border, Lebanese officials and the Israeli military said. Hezbollah guerrillas also fired rockets at an Israeli position near a disputed parcel of land on the Syrian-Lebanese border, provoking an Israeli airstrike, Lebanese officials said.

Responding to Israeli media reports that the army had been ordered to be ready to leave Lebanon by June 1, the Defense Ministry released a statement saying there was no such order in place.