Mideast situation/Lebanon – Letter from Lebanon

Letter dated 28 July 1987 from the Permanent Representative of Lebanon

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

On instructions from my Government and pursuant to my earlier letters, it is my regrettable duty to inform you that Israel has committed another act of aggression against Lebanese territory, on the usual pretext of combating and forestalling the terrorist activities of which it is the target.

During the night of 26-27 July last, an Israeli commando force consisting of some 40 men came ashore on the Lebanese coast south of Sarda, 40 kilometres north of the Israeli border. Using fast boats and helicopters, they attacked with missiles and machine-guns, leaving seven dead and four wounded – all Lebanese – before withdrawing under cover of intense bombardment from the sea and from the air.

The Lebanese Government strongly condemns this serious criminal action and cautions that Israel is continuing to flout the rules of international law, the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter and the resolutions adopted by United Nations bodies. It draws attention to the seriousness of the attitude displayed by Israel, which is encroaching on the sovereignty of a neighbouring State, violating its territorial waters and territory with no regard for the lives, safety or property of its inhabitants.

The pretext which Israel cites in justification of this criminal act, namely its campaign against the terrorist activities of which it is the target, amounts to a further escalation of the intensive propaganda campaign Israel is mounting to mislead international public opinion.

Israel has cited similar pretexts and justifications for every one of its acts of aggression against the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where the victims have always been innocent children, women and old people.

Today it is resorting to the same excuses and justifications for killing Lebanese 40 kilometres from its borders.

The Lebanese Government rejects these justifications, which the facts belie.  It emphasizes the gravity of Israel's terrorist actions against the Lebanese and people living in Lebanese territory, condemns the silence that surrounds such operations and hopes that this new act of Israeli aggression will prompt the international community to put an immediate end to these bloody attacks launched by Israel on Lebanese territory.

I should be grateful if you would arrange for the text of this letter to be distributed as an official document of the General Assembly, under item 39 of the provisional agenda, and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Rachid FAKHOURY

Permanent Representative

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*A/42/150.