Israeli Warplanes Attack Guerrilla Bases in Lebanon

Israeli warplanes streaked in at dawn today and rocketed Palestinian guerrilla bases in citrus groves that border a sprawling refugee camp, flattening one building and badly damaging two.

Hospitals in this ancient southern port said one guerrilla was killed and five guerrillas and a Lebanese civilian were wounded in the first Israeli air force attack this year inside Lebanon.

Four jets rocketed the bases of Syrian-backed guerrillas on the outskirts of the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, which is 25 miles south of Beirut.

They made several passes at the three targets nestled among orange and lemon trees around the camp.

2 Days After Bombing

The Israeli air strike, the first in Lebanon since Oct. 27, occurred two days after the bombing of a Jerusalem pizza parlor in which little damage and no casualties were reported. Two Israelis were wounded in knife attacks Tuesday in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Fatah-Uprising, a breakaway PLO faction, claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem attack. Two of the buildings rocketed today were used by Fatah-Uprising and the other by a small PLO faction called the Palestinian Liberation Front.

The air attack occurred shortly before an infiltrator carrying Jordanian army identification papers ambushed an Israeli border patrol at the border settlement of Mehola in the occupied West Bank, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding two others.

The Israeli military command said the infiltrator was shot to death.

Near Jordanian Post

The infiltrator crossed the Israeli-Jordanian frontier near a Jordanian army post, said military sources, who gave these details:

The infiltrator took cover behind a boulder and fired at daybreak on the patrol, which was 600 yards from the Jordan River cease-fire line.

The foot patrol, which was followed by a machine gun-mounted jeep, was climbing down a steep dirt road into a narrow gully at the time of the ambush.

The infiltrator’s first burst of gunfire from an M-16 assault rifle missed, but he “apparently became frightened when he heard other forces coming behind him” and sprayed the patrol again from a distance of about 10 yards, the sources said.

Four soldiers were shot before an Israeli squad shot the gunman from behind, said the sources.