Mideast situation/Lebanon – Letter from Lebanon

DOCUMENT S/19406

Letter dated 5 January 1988 from the representative of Lebanon

to the Secretary-General

[Original: Arabic]

[6 January 1988]

On instructions from my Government and further to my earlier letters, I regret to inform you that on 2 January Israel committed a large-scale act of aggression directed against a number of sectors, as indicated below.

On Saturday, 2 January, in the evening, the Israeli air force bombed some blocks of flats near Sidon. The blocks of flats in question were destroyed, and the seven members of one Palestinian family lost their lives when they were buried under the rubble.

At the same time as that attack, Israeli helicopters based on an Israeli naval unit off the Lebanon coast fired rockets at six houses in the villages of Barja and Jieh, which are located 80 kilometres from the Israeli border. The houses in question were destroyed and many civilians were killed, including the 12 members of two Lebanese families, chiefly women and children.

So far this Israeli act of aggression has thus resulted in a total of 26 deaths, dozens of wounded and substantial material damage. Through this night-time attack, Israel sought to bring about the greatest number of casualties possible, under the usual pretext of aiming at Palestinian resistance bases in Lebanon. As usual once again, most of the casualties resulting from this attack happened to be innocent civilians' women and children – both Lebanese nationals and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Govemment energetically condemns the repeated Israeli acts of aggression directed against the sovereignty, integrity and security of Lebanon and wishes to draw attention to the Israeli authorities' growing disregard both for the principles of intemational law and the natural right of all individuals to live in their home in peace and security. Both the Lebanese and those who have taken refuge in Lebanon, fleeing from the Israeli oppressor, have become nothing but targets for the various types of weapons that the Israeli army has at its disposal. This situation cannot but continue as long as the intemational community carries on fuming a blind eye to Israeli policy, which violates all legal principles and all humanitarian values and has already brought innumerable disasters and untold suffering upon the Middle East as a whole and on Lebanon in particular.

In these circumstances, the Lebanese Government reserves the right to request that the Security Council should be convened so that it should assume its responsibilities with regard to the dangerous situation resulting from Israel's repeated acts of aggression.

I should be grateful if you would have the text of this letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Rachid FAKHOURY

Permanent Representative of Lebanon

to the United Nations

* Circulated under the double symbol A/43/79-S/19406.