Israel invades southern Lebanon

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - Israeli troops and tanks invaded southern Lebanon under cover of air and naval strikes Sunday in a massive search-and-destroy mission against Palestinian guerrilla strongholds. Syria said its forces in Lebanon were in "direct confrontation" with the invaders, raising the spectre of a new Middle East war.

The United States joined a unanimous demand Sunday night by the U.N. Security Council that Israel "withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally" from Lebanon.

The 15-nation council renewed its call of Saturday for an end to the hostilities and directed both sides to advise U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar within 24 hours of their acceptance of the resolution.

An estimated 20,000 Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks stormed across a 33-mile front stretching from the Mediterranean Sea almost to the Syrian frontier in a bid to silence Palestinian artillery shelling northern Israeli settlements in the Galilee.

The Palestine Liberation Organization vowed a "fight unto death" to defend its Lebanese power base.

A spokesman for the Israeli military command said there was "no credibility to reports of artillery or other confrontations between the Syrians and the Israeli forces."

It was the third day of Israeli action against guerrilla targets in Lebanon following the attempted assassination Thursday of Israel's ambassador in London. Lebanese police reported at least 230 people killed in Israeli strikes Friday and Saturday, but gave no new casualty figures for Sunday's battles. The PLO claimed its guerrillas killed at least 150 Israeli soldiers and captured two airmen.

Syria issued a military communique saying its forces made direct contact with the Israelis in three separate areas.

"Our forces were ordered to confront the Israeli forces and have been doing so as of this evening," said the communique, carried by Syria's official news agency SANA in Damascus.

Lebanon's state radio later said Syrian positions were pounding the advancing Israeli forces in the central sector of the invasion front with long-range artillery.

An earlier Israeli communique said the armed forces command had "taken all necessary military measures to insure that the Syrians will not intervene in the Israel Defense Forces anti-terrorist operation."

The Israeli Cabinet issued a statement saying "the Syrian army will not be attacked unless it attacks our forces."

The Damascus communique did not specifically state that Syrians were battling the Israeli forces.

But it asserted that Israel's invasion forces made contact with Syria's forward lines at the Jarmak mountain range in the central invasion thrust and Burghos and the Hasbaya Road intersection in the Arkoub region at the easternmost invasion theater in the foothills of Mount Hermon.

Syria maintains a 22,000-man army in central and northern Lebanon to police the armistice that ended the 1976-77 Moslem-Christian civil war. But Israel's Christian allies in southern Lebanon charge the Syrians have become an occupation army bent on destroying them, and Israeli warplanes have clashed several times with Syrian MiG jets.

The PLO reported hand-to-hand combat with the Israelis in the southwestern Tyre area and conceded the Israelis crossed the Litani River and reached the outskirts of Nabatiyeh in the central section of the front. The PLO said "fierce combat now flares with all weapons."

The Litani was the northernmost point of Israel's 91-day invasion in 1978 and was the southernmost point where Israel said it would tolerate the Palestinian presence.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin declared his forces would "push the terrorists 25 miles" north of the Israeli- Lebanon border.

U.N. officials said a Norwegian peacekeeping soldier was killed in a crossfire between Israeli and Palestinian forces in the eastern sector of the invasion zone. Lebanon appealed for U.S. intervention and called for an emergency Arab summit.

Israeli jets frequently broke the sound barrier over Beirut, 50 miles north of the main battle zone, drawing massive barrages of guerrilla anti-aircraft fire. But witnesses reported no bombing runs on the Lebanese capital.