Nadene Goldfoot
After 1968, militant groups that formed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other Palestinian groups established a quasi-state in southern Lebanon, using it as a base for attacks against civilian targets in northern Israel as well as terror attacks on diaspora Israelis and other targets worldwide. This violence was exacerbated by an influx of some 3,000 PLO militants who had fled Jordan following the defeat of Palestinian groups to Jordanian forces during the Black September conflict; the Palestinian political cause began to regroup in southern Lebanon and re-shifted the focus of its attacks to Israeli targets, and did so via the Israel–Lebanon border. Israel responded to Palestinian attacks from Lebanon with extensive air raids against PLO bases of operations.
The Coastal Road Massacre of an Israeli bus and occupants by Palestinian terrorists
The coastal road massacre occurred on 11 March 1978, when Palestinian militants hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway of Israel and murdered its occupants; 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed as a result of the attack while 76 more were wounded. The attack was planned by the influential Palestinian militant leader Khalil al-Wazir (aka Abu Jihad) and carried out by Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist party co-founded by al-Wazir and Yasser Arafat in 1959. The initial plan of the militants was to seize a luxury hotel in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. It turns out to be the beginning taking Israeli hostages! The militants then walked less than a mile up to the four-lane highway, opened fire at passing cars, and hijacked a white Mercedes taxi, killing its occupants. Setting off down the highway toward Tel Aviv, they hijacked a chartered bus carrying Egged bus drivers and their families on a day outing, along the Coastal Highway. Although Abu Jihad had ordered them to seize a hotel, the militants improvised and changed the nature of their attack due to the dozens of hostages in their hands. The militants drove down the coastal highway, shooting and throwing grenades at passing cars. They also shot at the passengers and threw at least one body out of the bus. At one point they commandeered Bus 901, traveling from Tel Aviv to Haifa, taking its passengers hostage as well, and forced the passengers from the first bus to board it.At one point, the bus stopped, and one of the perpetrators got out and fired directly into a passing car, killing a teenager, Imri Tel-Oren, and injuring his father Hanoch. Sharon Tel-Oren, Imri's mother, testified: "We were in our station wagon, driving along the coastal highway. We saw something odd ahead – a bus, but it seemed to be stopped. Then we saw someone lying on the road. There was shattered glass all over, children screaming. Then we heard the gunshots. Imri was asleep in the back seat. The bullet passed through the front seat and hit his head, killing him instantly. My husband was shot in the arm, and lost the movement in his fingers."
Police were alerted to the attack; their cars caught up to the bus and trailed it. Although the militants fired at the pursuing police cars, policemen did not return fire, fearing they would hit the civilians inside the bus. Police quickly set up a roadblock, but the militants plowed the bus through it and continued their journey. According to Khaled Abu Asba, one of the two surviving attackers, police set up multiple roadblocks, and there was an exchange of fire at every intersection.
This is important to remember: The PLO claimed responsibility for the attack, which was planned by influential Fatah leader Abu Jihad. The attack's purpose was to disrupt ongoing Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad feared that a truce between Israel and Egypt would be detrimental to their cause. The operation was considered to be of such importance that Abu Jihad, together with his operations commander for Lebanon Azmi Zair, personally briefed the participants.
Israeli soldiers during the invasion
1. The 1978 South Lebanon conflict, also known as the First Israeli invasion of Lebanon and codenamed Operation Litani by Israel, began when Israel invaded southern Lebanon up to the Litani River in March 1978.
It was in response to the Coastal Road massacre near Tel Aviv by Palestinian militants based in Lebanon. The conflict resulted in the deaths of 20 Israelis, and an exaggerated number furnished by the Palestinians of 1,100–2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, the internal displacement mentioned by Arafat of a possible 100,000 to 250,000 people in Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces gained a military victory against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the latter was forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon, preventing it from launching attacks on Israel from across its land border with Lebanon. In response to the outbreak of hostilities, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 425 and Resolution 426 on 19 March 1978, which called on Israel to immediately withdraw its troops from Lebanon and established the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
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