Hizbullah fires Katyusha rockets at Israeli border
Lebanon, Local, 7/4/1997

Hizbullah unleashed a barrage of Katyusha rockets and mortar fire against occupying forces in the South on July 5, and Israeli warplanes bombed villages in Iqlim Al-Tuffah and rocketed a Palestinian base in Naameh.

The clashes began at dawn with the resistance firing rockets at Israeli positions in the eastern sector of the occupation zone, some of which reportedly landed across the border.

"Forty Katyushas and mortars fell on the Tall Al-Abbas Israeli artillery outpost," a Lebanese security source said. "Seven mortars fell across the border."

Israeli army radio reported no damage or injuries on the Israeli side of the border, but said their forces went on high alert in the occupied zone. Israel claimed that a Hizbullah guerrilla was killed in the zone's eastern sector.

The violence followed a roadside bomb attack in Jezzine late on July 2, which killed Emile Nasr, an officer in the South Lebanese Army (SLA) who led the militia's 20th brigade.

Three other SLA members were wounded.

That operation was met with a raid just after midnight by Israeli warplanes on a suspected Hizbullah position in Kfar Milki, Iqlim Al-Tuffah. No casualties were reported, Lebanese sources said.

SLA radio said that their fighters shelled the area north of Jezzine in retaliation.

Last week, the SLA bombarded the village of Maghdoushe near Sidon, making good on threats to target civilian areas if Hizbullah persisted in setting roadside bombs. SLA officials said that earlier this week that they would continue such "retaliatory measures.²

In another development, two Israeli helicopters flying in low at dusk on July 3 from warships out at sea rocketed a camp belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the hills of Naameh, 16 km south of Beirut.

Guerrilla sources said at least four of the PFLP-GC fighters were wounded. Meanwhile, on July 3 Lebanon called a meeting for July 4 in Naquora of the five-nation committee monitoring the April 1996 cease-fire, after a civilian was injured near Nabatieh by an Israeli attack on July 2.

In calling the meeting, foreign minister Fares Bouez accused Israel of fomenting "an atmosphere of escalating tensions in the South," adding that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to "export his internal problems abroad.²

The commander of the Israeli northern command, Maj. Gen. Amiram Levine told reporters that Israel "has no intention of escalating the situation. We aren't firing at our own initiative into Lebanese villages. But Hizbullah fires at posts next to our communities, and it does that next to Lebanese communities. It brings the war into Lebanese communities, and for self-defense the Israeli army and the SLA will have to respond," he said.

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