Israeli Warplanes Strike Targets in South Lebanon

Israeli warplanes struck Palestinian targets near the south Lebanese port of Sidon on Thursday, reportedly killing at least eight people and wounding 20.

The attack was carried out two hours after a Katyusha rocket, fired from Lebanon, exploded in the yard of a high school in northern Israel, injuring three students and a teacher. Security sources here claimed there was no connection between the two incidents.

The incidents were part of a rising cycle of violence near Israel’s northern frontier in recent weeks as Palestinians and Shia Muslims in south Lebanon have stepped up their efforts to expel Israeli elements and the militia forces of its ally, the South Lebanon Army, from Israel’s declared security zone, which extends for up to 10 miles north of the frontier in Lebanon.

Militia Fire Kills 3

Last Monday, the South Lebanon Army responded to Katyusha rocket attacks on its positions in the zone by shelling the predominantly Shia Muslim town of Nabatiyeh, killing three people and wounding 22.

Mahmoud Fakih, political leader in southern Lebanon of Amal, the principal Shia militia, vowed at that time that “Israeli settlements and installations will not be beyond the blows of the resistance henceforth.”

On Thursday morning, a single Katyusha fired from north of the frontier exploded in a schoolyard at Kiryat Shemona on the Israeli side. Three of the injured were treated at a clinic for injuries from flying glass and released. A fourth person, cut on the forehead by shrapnel, was still hospitalized Thursday night.

It was the first time since Israel invaded Lebanon in June, 1982, that any Israeli civilians have been hurt in a cross-border attack from Lebanon. Israel said at that time that it launched the invasion to end an ongoing threat against its northern settlements.

Israelis Patrol Zone

Most Israeli troops had been withdrawn from Lebanon by last June, although several hundred still remain inside the security zone together with an unknown number of intelligence officers and the Lebanese militiamen of the South Lebanon Army.

Yaron Shur, headmaster of the Kiryat Shemona high school, said after Thursday’s attack: “We were very, very lucky nobody was killed. Only minutes before, the children had been playing basketball in the yard.”

Maj. Gen. Ori Orr, Israel’s military commander in the north, said on army radio that it was not clear whether the Katyusha was fired by Shia Muslims or Palestinians. Later, Israel radio reported that a statement made in Sidon by Fatah, the mainstream faction of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Act Called ‘Despicable’

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

Shortly before noon, according to a report from Sidon by Reuters news agency, six Israeli jets streaked inland from the Mediterranean toward two Palestinian refugee camps on the outskirts of that city. Three flew cover while the others fired 12 rockets at Palestinian targets on the ground, the report said.