Word: syrians
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With Lebanese officials serving as intermediaries, the Reagan Administration sent a nine-point U.S.-Lebanese proposal to the P.L.O., offering the Palestinians a more or less honorable surrender. At the heart of the plan was a goal believed to be acceptable to all parties, including the Lebanese and the Syrians: the removal of Palestinian, Israeli and Syrian military forces from the Beirut area, and their replacement by Lebanese army units. An accompanying message from the U.S. to the P.L.O. contained a terse warning-make a quick decision to withdraw from Lebanon or face the fact that Israel would "probably" invade...
...attacks came by air, land and sea. Relentlessly, day after day, Israeli forces rained destruction on Lebanon in their determined drive to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization and oust Syrian forces from the country. Waves of Israeli F-16s and F-4 Phantom jets screamed in over Palestinian-and Muslim-controlled West Beirut, dropping bombs. Israeli warships bombarded the city's coastline all the way from the airport area south of the capital to Beirut's Manara district, and the Avenue de Paris, near the sea, where many embassies and foreigners' residences are situated. From trenches, bunkers...
Finally, after three days of intensifying attacks, President Reagan personally drafted his own forceful demand for a ceasefire, and the guns fell silent-but only for a day. At week's end, Israeli warplanes attacked and destroyed a Syrian SA-6 missile battery in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, and an Israeli armored column was closing in on Beirut's airport. For the first time, Israeli forces were poised to advance into the heart of Beirut to deliver a knockout blow to the P.L.O. leadership...
...apparent aim of the earlier Israeli assault on Beirut was to pressure P.L.O. leaders into laying down their arms and leaving the country that has been their haven, sometimes reluctantly, for the past 18 years. But in blasting P.L.O. and Syrian positions in West Beirut, the Israelis also struck nearby civilian buildings, including the Soviet embassy grounds, hotels, private residences and even a sanitarium. Rescue workers dug with their hands in the rubble for victims as the wail of ambulances sounded throughout West Beirut. The acrid smell of cordite filled the air. Splintered glass and chunks of concrete littered streets...
...hills above the capital, meanwhile, Israeli and Syrian forces battled fiercely for control of the Beirut-Damascus highway. On Wednesday, the Israelis began reinforcing their positions in the hills southeast of Beirut and advanced on the town of Aley, located at a key crossroads on the highway. Supported by air attacks and artillery fire, Israeli tanks and infantry engaged the Syrians at close range in some of the most ferocious fighting of the three-week-old war. Damascus claimed to have destroyed 17 Israeli tanks and other armored vehicles, while losing two of its own MiG jets in dogfights over...