The Israeli air force bomb a sports…

The Israeli air force bomb a sports stadium in Beirut, said to be used for ammunition storage by the PLO, on the afternoon of June 4, 1982.

The PLO responds by shelling Israeli towns in Galilee.

On June 5, the government of Israel formally accuses the PLO of breaking the cease-fire, and at 11 A.M. on the following day, Israeli ground forces cross the border into southern Lebanon, where the PLO has a number of strongholds and where Fatah has been headquartered.

The stated goals of the operation are to free northern Israel from PLO rocket attacks by creating a forty-kilometer-wide security zone in southern Lebanon and by signing a peace treaty with Lebanon.

In fact, Menachem Begin seeks to destroy the secular nationalism of the PLO, with its persistent call for a diplomatic settlement, and establish in power a Lebanese government that will conclude a peace treaty with Israel along the lines of the Egyptian-Israeli peace of 1979.

The Israeli cabinet has authorized a limited operation, called Operation Peace for Galilee, and Begin makes it clear that IDF troops are not to advance farther than twenty-five miles (forty kilometers) beyond the Lebanese border.

Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's plans are more ambitious, however.

Even as U.S. president Ronald Reagan's special envoy Philip Habib attempts to prevent an Israeli-Syrian clash, Israeli jets destroy Syrian antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon.

This strategic surprise attack is followed by a short but violent series of ground skirmishes and two days of aerial combat that cost Syria some one hundred aircraft.

The invasion is successful: Syrian forces are defeated, the PLO retreats but ...