"Hamizrachi, Beate. 1988. The Emergence of the South Lebanon Security Zone:
Major Saad Haddad and the Ties with Israel 1975-1978. New York: Praeger.

"Toward the end of the hostilities along the Israeli-Lebanese border [in 1948], a number of Maronites from South Lebanese villages approached Israeli army officers and offered to join the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). It was decided that even though the IDF did not have any special interest in organizing a regular Maronite unit, it was interested in creating a very small, irregular unit to carry out mine-setting operations and other forms of harassment at the enemy.s rear. Therefore, a small number of the Maronites were put through training, and the rest were turned down" (p. 14) "Thirty years later, a number of Maronites and Druze from villages in the south proudly showed me their IDF Reservist IDs from the period following the Israeli War of Independence. Many of them had later joined the Lebanese Army without suffering any inner conflict" (p. 15 fn 3). (thanks Laleh)