May 25, 2000

Chronology of involvement in Lebanon

The IDF Spokesman yesterday issued a chronology of Israel's involvement in Lebanon. Some significant dates:

• March 1949 - Armistice agreement signed.
  
  
• December 1968 - IDF commandos raid Beirut Airport in response to terrorist attacks, destroy 14 aircraft on the ground.
  
  
• January 1969 - The first Katyusha rocket hits Kiryat Shmona, killing two residents.
  
  
• March 1972 - IDF destroys 11 terrorist bases, killing 200 terrorists.
  
  
• March 1978 - Operation Litani is launched in retaliation for that month's Coastal Road massacre. In attacks on terror bases in southern Lebanon, 300 terrorists are killed, at a cost of 35 IDF soldiers killed and 71 wounded.
  
  
• March 17, 1978 - UN Security Council Resolution 425 is passed calling for Israel's withdrawal.
  
  
• July 24, 1981 - Cease-fire agreement signed with Lebanon after US mediation.
  
  
• June 1982 - Operation Peace for Galilee begins in response to the attempted assassination of Israel's ambassador to the UK and Katyusha attacks on the North.
  
  
• August 1982 - IDF reaches Beirut.
  
  
• November 1982 - IDF military government building in Tyre destroyed by cooking gas explosion, killing 75 soldiers and SLA members.
  
  
• November 1983 - Suicide terrorist bomber kills 60 in Tyre, 29 IDF of them soldiers, border policemen, and General Security Service officers and 31 prisoners.
  
  
• June 1985 - Bulk of 1982 invasion force withdraws, leaving behind some 1,000 soldiers to patrol a self- declared security zone to prevent cross-border terror attacks.
  
  
• * February 1992 - Hizbullah leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi is killed by a missile fired by an IAF helicopter gunship.
  
  
• July 1993 - Operation Accountability is launched against Hizbullah and other terror groups, resulting in about 60 terrorists killed and dozens wounded. During the operation the terrorists fired 142 Katyushas across the northern border, killing two civilians and one soldier and wounding 25 civilians and nine soldiers.
  
  
• April 1996 - Operation Grapes of Wrath is launched in response to Katyusha attacks by Hizbullah. During a comprehensive campaign against the Hizbullah infrastructure the terrorists fire 777 Katyushas at northern settlements, wounding 62 civilians and five soldiers. Twenty terrorists are killed during the operation.
  
  
• February 4, 1997 - Two transport helicopters ferrying troops to Lebanon collide over the northern Galilee at night, killing all 73 aboard.
  
  
• September 1997 - Eleven naval commandos and an army doctor are killed in an abortive raid on an Amal base.
  
  
• April 1998 - The cabinet decides to implement UN Security Council Resolution 425.
  
  
• February 1999 - Brig.-Gen. Erez Gerstein, two soldiers, and Israel Radio reporter Ilan Roeh are killed by a Hizbullah roadside bomb.
  
  
• June 1999 - Two civilians killed in a Katyusha barrage. The IDF responds by bombing Lebanese infrastructure.
  
  
• January 2000 - Gen. Akel Hashem, the SLA commander for the western sector, is assassinated by a Hizbullah bomb at his home.
  
  
• May 2000 - Hizbullah Katyusha attacks increase tension on the northern border as a soldier is killed and civilians are wounded in Kiryat Shmona. The IAF responds with bombing raids on Lebanese infrastructure.
  
  
• May 24, 2000 - The last IDF soldier leaves Lebanon.

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