Israeli Jets Attack Palestinians, Shias in S. Lebanon, Killing 5

Israeli jets bombed, rocketed and strafed Palestinian and Shia Muslim positions in southern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least five guerrillas and wounding 14 in Israel’s third air attack in the area this year, Lebanese police said.

Six fighter-bombers carried out seven runs against guerrilla emplacements around the towering hilltop statue of the Virgin Mary in the Christian town of Maghdousheh, police reported.

They said the raid targeted positions manned by guerrillas of the mainline Fatah faction of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, the Moscow-oriented Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the pro-Libyan Palestine Popular Struggle Front.

Adjacent strongpoints manned by militiamen of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God, were also targets in the raid on Maghdousheh, three miles southeast of Sidon, police said.

The Israeli military command in Tel Aviv reported the raid and said all its planes returned safely. It said pilots reported hits on their targets, described as headquarters and weapons stores for the guerrillas.

Police said the Israeli pilots released hot-air balloons that decoyed Soviet-made SAM-7 missiles fired at them from Palestinian positions in Sidon’s refugee camps of Ein el Hilwa and Miye ou Miye.

The casualties included both Palestinians and Shias, according to a local reporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Ambulances evacuated the injured from Maghdousheh, the scene of Israel’s second air raid in four days.

Hezbollah recently moved into Maghdousheh to help disengage PLO guerrillas and militiamen of the Shia Amal movement. Amal is determined to keep the PLO from rebuilding the power structure in Lebanon it lost when Israel invaded in June, 1982.