Battle of the Beaufort ( 1982 ) The Battle of the Beaufort was fought between the Israel Defense Forces ( IDF ) and the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO ) on June 6 , 1982 over Beaufort Castle , Lebanon . It was one of the first clashes of the 1982 Lebanon War , and resulted in the IDF capturing the castle . Background . Located 717 meters above sea level , Beaufort Castle commands great parts of the Upper Galilee and South Lebanon . It could be used to direct artillery , and even Syria had sent artillery spotters there . Israel shelled the fortress repeatedly , but could never actually enter it - the massive basalt rocks of the Medieval construction proving an effective defense even in face of modern artillery and aerial bombardments . For Israel , it had become a symbol of the Palestinian power over the region . For the Palestinians , it served as a memento of Saladin ' s victory over the Crusaders in 1192 and of their own endurance against Israel , and the PLO used it as the colophon on leaflets . Two weeks before the war started , Yasser Arafat visited the castle , sat down with its defenders and assured them that in thirty - six hours of fighting , the PLO could get a ceasefire . The sector commander protested , insisting that there was no way they could withstand an Israeli attack for so long . Preparations for the attack . The IDF Northern Command had been planning to capture the Beaufort for a long time before the war , designating the mission to Sayeret Golani , the commando unit of the Golani Brigade . The unit studied the castle and trained for tactics to conquer it . However , the way the invasion progressed rendered the capture of the Beaufort unnecessary . Capture would have been necessary had the IDF decided to cross the Litani River via the al - Khardali Bridge , just below the fortress . But since the IDF instead decided to use the Akiye Bridge , located much further to the west , the Israelis could have proceeded to Nabatiye unaffected by the Beaufort . Since the PLO troops stationed in and around the castle were not firing at Israeli settlements when the war began , there was no urgent need to neutralize them . The General Staff issued a command to postpone the operation , but the command failed to reach the Sayeret . The Sayeret former commander , Giora ( Guni ) Harnik had been discharged from the IDF just a week earlier , but was suddenly called back . Since the unit commander , Moshe Kaplinsky , was reported wounded while on the road , Harnik was sent as replacement . He drove there so fast that his APC flipped over , although he and the other passengers were uninjured . His surprise return was a morale boost for the unit men . His deputy was Mordechai ( Moti ) Goldman . The unit consisted of 23 men , and the supporting engineering company of sixty - five . Zeev Schiff and Ehud Yaari report that fifteen Palestinians were stationed at the Beaufort at the start of the war . Some of them may have escaped before the battle started . The battle . At first , a daylight attack was planned , but as the war went behind schedule , a night attack became the preferred option . The column began to move at 4 : 00 PM . As darkness fell , Harnik ordered his drivers to turn on their lights as they approached the castle to get there faster , and then ordered them to disembark the APC s and prepare for an assault on foot . They were to take the northern outpost and its trenches while the supporting engineering company would take the southern outpost . The first dash up the asphalt road met with heavy machine gun fire which killed two soldiers and wounded four more . A few moments later , Mordechai Goldman , an Israeli officer and personal deputy to Harnik and seven other men began a second assault . Goldman and two others reached the main trench , encountering a Palestinian and killing him . The two other soldiers tried to jump over the trench but were cut down . Goldman moved farther along the trench , threw a grenade into it and then jumped down and killed the Palestinian fighter . Since his magazine was almost empty by then , he picked up the dead Palestinian ' s AK - 47 . He then climbed out of the trench and ran alongside it . He killed another Palestinian before being joined by Harnik and two other soldiers . Harnik and Goldman then came across a lone Palestinian , entrenched in a concrete position . The Palestinian managed to kill Harnik with a bullet to the chest before Goldman threw an explosive charge at his position , killing the Palestinian fighter and destroying the position . Another soldier was killed by the time the engineering company went into action . Most of the remaining Palestinians were killed as Israeli troops secured the mountain . Because of both weather conditions and continued firing nearby , medical evacuation was delayed until shortly before daybreak . Only then , did the death toll - six men , including the unit commander - become apparent . After it , the soldiers spread out and climbed to take the roof of the fortress , which turned out to be empty . Several Palestinians may have escaped during the night . By 6 : 30 AM , Israeli control over the castle was secured . Aftermath . During the day , the Chief of Staff ( Ramatkal ) , Rafael Eitan , visited the troops and was astounded to learn of the death toll . Later that day , Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon arrived , accompanied by newsmen and photographers . They did not know about the losses , as Sharon did not inquire before declaring that the battle was won without casualties on the Israeli side . Showing interest in the Palestinian resistance , Begin asked " Did they have machine guns ? " , a question which later became a symbol of how uninformed the Israeli leadership was of the events on the front throughout the war . Harnik was posthumously given the division commander citation . The commander of the Golani Brigade later confessed that in retrospect , he would not have attacked the Beaufort . An investigation was held after the war as to why the order to postpone the operation failed to reach its destination , but produced inconclusive results .