Middle East: Bombs, Passions and Farewells

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Toward week's end soldiers finally broke into Kahane's bunker and dragged away the rabbi and ten screaming disciples. The troops talked 20 students who lad barricaded themselves atop the war memorial into coming down without a fight. Demolition teams blew up the memorial and the remaining air-raid shelters. Helicopters scoured the surrounding area in search of protesters who might try to return and camp on the sand dunes. At noon on Sunday the remaining soldiers left Yamit for the last time.

A period of tense diplomacy had preceded the final withdrawal from the Sinai. For weeks the Israelis had been complaining about the Egyptians: that they were engaging in anti-Israeli propaganda; that they were keeping more troops in the Sinai than they were allowed under the terms of the peace treaty; that they were permitting Bedouin smugglers to bring weapons for the P.L.O into the Gaza Strip. The Egyptians discussed all these matters with Israeli Defense Minister Sharon when he visited Cairo two weeks ago, and to some extent managed to assuage the Israelis' feelings. In addition, there were 15 border points that remained in dispute, including a spot on the Gulf of Aqaba where an Israeli businessman is building a luxury hotel. But these matters were not considered serious enough to delay the withdrawal.

As evidence of his nervousness, Begin insisted on written assurances from both President Reagan and Egypt's President Mubarak that the two leaders remained committed to the Camp David agreement. The problem, as an American official described it, was "how to reassure the Israelis without calling into question the honor of the Egyptians." But the letters were duly written, and Begin was reassured.

In the meantime, the Israelis staged their aerial attack on P.L.O. positions in southern Lebanon, sending some 60 aircraft—including American-made F-15s and F-16s—to bomb three P.L.O. bases. Even the Israeli public was caught by surprise. In the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, there were reports Wednesday afternoon that one of the P.L.O.'s Katyusha rockets had exploded somewhere to the north. It soon became clear, however that what the people of Nahariya had heard was the sonic boom of an Israeli jet fighter returning from the raid into Lebanon.

TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis was spending the afternoon in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon. As he passed through Syrian lines, he noticed that the troops seemed to be on alert, with their antiaircraft guns manned and their SAM poised. At one point, as a gleaming white ambulance came to a stop near him, the crew jumped out and threw camouflage netting over it. Reported Brelis: "In the village of Chtaura I ordered toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and cold beer. A long day's thinking of what would prevail in this land so obsessed with torment seemed at last to be reaching a happy end. Suddenly, there was the tremor of something pounding heaven apart. Louder than thunder, more contemptuous than the sonic boom of a warplane. Looking out the trembling window, and surprised that it hadn't shattered, I could see droves of people fleeing by foot in one direction and, in the other, cars crazily speeding as if the last day on earth had arrived. There was no use staying inside. If bombs were about to fall, it was safer outdoors.