Israeli Jets Again Raid Bekaa Valley

Israeli jets bombed a Palestinian guerrilla camp in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Monday--the second such attack in 24 hours. Syria said its air defenses fired on the attacking jets.

The Israeli military command in Tel Aviv said the raid was on a camp of the Abu Moussa group, a Syrian-backed faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization that split off from Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction in 1983.

Reporters in the area said at least four guerrillas were wounded. In addition, they said, nine schoolchildren suffered minor cuts when glass in their school building in the nearby village of Taalabaya was shattered by the concussions of the bombs.

Beirut radio stations said that Monday’s bombing raid began at about 11:45 a.m. near the town of Chtoura, on the Beirut-to-Damascus highway about 28 miles east of Beirut. The Syrian army force in Lebanon has its headquarters in Chtoura.

A Damascus communique said Syrian air defenses fired on the attacking jets and forced them back. The Israeli command reported that all its planes returned safely after scoring “accurate hits.”

Monday’s raid was Israel’s third air strike in Lebanon this year. It occurred in the same area where Israel sent its jets Sunday against what it called a base of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another Syrian-backed PLO faction. At least one person was reported killed in that bombing.