Israel Threat to an Uneasy Peace

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Even as Israel's quarrelsome leaders worked out the details of an unprecedented agreement that brings Yitzhak Shamir to power as Prime Minister this week, the country was suddenly caught up in a looming military crisis. After Israeli air and naval forces attacked Palestinian positions near the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon in retaliation for a terrorist attack near Jerusalem's Western Wall, an Israeli pilot was captured by the Shi'ite Amal militia. At week's end, as Israeli troop strength was beefed up on the Lebanese border, the fragile national unity government in Jerusalem hastily closed ranks and angrily demanded the captive flyer's return. "We must remain alert," declared Shamir. "There must be no wavering."

Two pilots on board an Israeli F-4 Phantom fighter were forced to parachute when the jet was hit by an antiaircraft missile during the assault on bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Four people on the ground were killed and twelve were wounded in the attack, the 13th on guerrilla positions in Lebanon this year. But it was the first time since November 1983 that an Israeli plane had been destroyed by enemy fire. One pilot hid in the brush for an hour, activating an electronic device that enabled a rescue helicopter to determine his position. Despite heavy gunfire and difficult terrain, a Cobra helicopter gunship plucked the stranded pilot to safety and flew him 40 miles to the Israeli side of the border.

The second flyer was not so lucky. He was captured almost immediately by an Amal militiaman, Rafiq Ibrahim, 19. "I jumped out of the bush and ordered him to stick his hands up," Ibrahim later reported. "He raised only one arm, so I shouted at him and gestured by my M-16 rifle for him to raise his other hand. His right arm was broken." Amal officials, who have quietly aided Israel by harassing Palestinian fighters in southern Lebanon, were at first reluctant to admit to the capture, lest it lead to an Israeli rescue operation. They later said the pilot had been taken to Beirut.