10 Refugees Die as Israeli Jets Retaliate for Attack on School

Israeli jets attacked Palestinian refugee camps outside Sidon today, killing 10 people and wounding 22, police said. The attack came 90 minutes after a rocket exploded in a northern Israeli schoolyard, slightly injuring five people.

Guerrillas in the Ein el Hilwa and Miye ou Miya refugee camps and the nearby hilltop village of Siroubieh unleashed barrages of SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles at the Israeli fighter-bombers.

The planes released scarlet hot-air balloons to deflect Soviet-made heat-seeking missiles.

Lebanese police said no hits were reported on the four planes as they made six runs firing rockets on the village and camps. Israel’s military command reported that all planes returned safely to their base.

School Nearly Hit

The Israeli military command said the air strike was launched 1 1/2 hours after a Soviet-made Katyusha rocket fired from southern Lebanon hit a schoolyard in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona.

Four teen-age students and a teacher were slightly injured by glass fragments from windows broken by the blast, the military command reported. The five were treated at a clinic and released, a spokeswoman for Magen David, Israel’s version of the Red Cross, said.

The five were the first Israeli casualties of rocket fire from southern Lebanon since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization’s main power base.

Source Undetermined

Israel’s northern commander, Maj. Gen. Ori Orr, said on Israel army radio that the army had not determined whether the rocket was fired by Shia or Palestinian guerrillas.

Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir said on Israel radio that Israel would take all necessary steps to “prevent a recurrence of such despicable acts.”

The camps near Sidon that were attacked today are strongholds of PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement.

A Fatah leader, Badi abu Suleiman, said three of his guerrillas were among the 10 dead and 10 other guerrillas were wounded.

A two-story building near Miye ou Miya believed to be a headquarters for Fatah was flattened in the raid. Police said seven civilians, including Lebanese, were killed about 100 yards from the headquarters building.

Burning Buildings

Black smoke from burning buildings billowed over the camps on the outskirts of Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut.

The raid was the second Israeli air strike against Palestinian camps in Lebanon this year. One person was killed and five wounded Jan. 29 when Israeli fighters bombed three bases used by Syrian-backed guerrillas in Darb el Seem on the outskirts of Sidon’s Ein el Hilwa refugee camp.

Israeli warplanes hit guerrilla bases in Lebanon 13 times last year.

Today’s air strike came amid escalating clashes in southern Lebanon pitting the Israelis and their mainly Christian militia allies against leftist, Muslim and Palestinian guerrillas.

The guerrillas have launched a string of attacks on Israel’s northern Galilee panhandle in recent weeks.