Global Policy Forum

By William A. Orme Jr.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak today declared an end to the "tragedy" of Israel's two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon, as the last remaining Israeli troops and pro-Israeli militias pulled out of the border strip once known as Israel's security zone.

A hundred or more Israeli soldiers and three small Druse and Christian militia battalions were reported late tonight to be abandoning posts in the hilly eastern sector of the border, including the historic Crusader-built Beaufort Castle. Witnesses on the border said Israeli forces appeared to be blowing up their own former installations at the strategic vantage point before their final departure.

Earlier today, Israel and its allies withdrew from the western stretch of the buffer zone from the Mediterranean to the central Lebanese foothills, Israeli officers said.

"This 18-year tragedy is over," Mr. Barak said today, referring to the huge 1982 invasion of Lebanon that deepened Israel's hold on the southern border district, to protect northern Israel from attack during Lebanon's civil war. After several earlier incursions, the Israeli military had permanently occupied a narrow swath of the Lebanese border zone since 1978.

In an emergency session of Israel's security cabinet that lasted until early this morning, the prime minister was authorized to remove all Israeli forces from Lebanon as soon as possible. The withdrawal will be completed six weeks ahead of Mr. Barak's original self-imposed deadline of July 7, army officers said.

Some Israeli soldiers remained at their posts today along the border, and Israel was hoping that they, too, might be replaced by United Nations peacekeepers. But with or without United Nations replacements, they were expected to be gone soon, a senior Israeli officer said.

Once Israeli forces are fully redeployed across the border, Israel will hold Beirut and Damascus directly responsible for attacks on Israeli territory launched from Lebanon, Mr. Barak said.

Israeli Army officials said future retaliatory strikes from Israel "would not exclude" Syrian military installations in Lebanon.

Israeli officers said they were anxiously awaiting an official United Nations map delineating the 1923 border between Lebanon and British-ruled Mandate Palestine. United Nations cartographers have prepared a map, they said, but it needs approval by the Security Council before serving as a guideline for the withdrawal.

Under the terms of United Nations Resolution 425, which Israel has now pledged to respect, Israeli forces are obligated to move permanently south of an international border that has never been fully marked or even surveyed. "I want to withdraw, I am ready to withdraw, but to where?" an Israeli officer asked today.

Israel, criticized for years for ignoring United Nations resolutions demanding its withdrawal from Lebanon, is now in the peculiar position of virtually demanding that the Security Council impose tough and specific conditions on the withdrawal. Two United Nations demands have already been met, albeit inadvertently: the disbanding of the Israeli-supported South Lebanon Army, and the release of prisoners held by the militia. But Israel wants to pull south of an internationally recognized border, thus depriving Hezbollah guerrillas of their air of nationalist legitimacy and leaving Syria as the sole foreign occupier in Lebanon.

"In redeploying along the international border, we are regaining control of the initiative," Foreign Minister David Levy said today. "If our security is threatened by anyone -- whether directly or through any organization -- we will act in accordance with the right to national self-defense accorded by international law, with all this implies with regard to those who help these organizations to attack and threaten our security."

Meanwhile, on the nightly news programs here, shots of fleeing pro-Israeli militiamen were juxtaposed with jubilant Hezbollah followers entering hamlets and empty army bases a few thousand yards across the border. Israeli air strikes against border targets were aimed at abandoned Israeli weaponry that Israel had bequeathed to its militia allies just days before, viewers were told.

"Just like that last helicopter on the embassy roof in Vietnam, we witnessed a set of difficult images last night that will be forever engraved in our collective consciousness," Hemi Shalev said in the newspaper Maariv today. "We too learned that there are no happy withdrawals, no free withdrawals. The scent of humiliation permeates the air."

But also like the American withdrawal from Vietnam, the humiliation was tempered by a deep sense of relief. In a brief session of the Israeli Parliament today, opposition legislators angrily attacked the withdrawal as "inept" and "an embarrassment." But few said they would now favor a re-entry into Lebanon, whatever the provocation.

Senior military commanders insisted continually today that the evacuation had gone "surprisingly well," as one commander said.

In diametrical contrast to the popular view that the withdrawal was dangerously chaotic, Israeli officers contended that they had anticipated the Hezbollah entry and quick demise of the South Lebanon Army. Indeed, they noted, dissolution of the militia was a United Nations requirement for future peacekeeping support.

Of paramount importance to commanders, not a single Israeli soldier was killed or seriously wounded in the withdrawals, they stressed. Since 1978, more than 900 Israeli soldiers have died in southern Lebanon. Warning From Barak

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, delivered a letter from Prime Minister Barak to Secretary General Kofi Annan today warning Syria and Iran not to exploit the withdrawal from southern Lebanon by encouraging terrorist attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory.

"Unfortunately, Syria does everything in its power to prevent and sabotage Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon," the letter from Mr. Barak said. "I am referring particularly to Syria's cynical exploitation of the Palestinians in Lebanon to commit terrorist acts against Israel after the withdrawal and the fact that it provides a free hand to Iran, its messengers and protégés -- primarily the Hezbollah -- to build infrastructures which would undermine regional stability to the point of a possible outbreak of hostilities."

Meanwhile, the Security Council gave its support to Mr. Annan's plan for a two-step increase in the number of peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

Mr. Annan's envoy to the region returned there today with the council's backing to begin talks with Lebanon, Israel and Syria about how Israel's withdrawal and the disarming of the South Lebanon Army will be verified. The United Nations peacekeeping force of 4,513 troops will be increased to about 5,600 for monitoring the withdrawal.

When the Israeli withdrawal is confirmed, the United Nations plans to reinforce the peacekeepers with two mechanized infantry battalions and equipment for air and sea surveillance, bringing the troop strength to 7,935.