Israeli Air Raids Kill 2, Hurt 4 in South Lebanon

Israeli fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships raided Shia Muslim and Palestinian guerrilla bases in southern Lebanon in two attacks Wednesday, killing at least two people and wounding four, police said.

Police also said that Israeli troops and their Christian militia allies shelled six Shia towns, killing one and wounding six. However, an Israeli military spokesman said he was “not aware” of any shelling by Israeli troops.

In two separate attacks Wednesday, five militiamen of the South Lebanon Army militia, a predominantly Christian organization allied with Israel, were wounded when guerrillas fired mortar rounds at their positions near the southern Lebanese village of Aishiye, an Israeli army spokesman said.

Three Guerrillas Killed

Also Wednesday, an Israeli military source said that Israeli troops killed three guerrillas in a clash near the village of Qantarah in southern Lebanon.

The air attacks came the day after a bomb exploded in a parked car in Tel Aviv’s Petah Tikva suburb, killing an Arab who planted it. The air raids raised the number of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon this year to 18 and followed mounting guerrilla attacks on Israel’s self-designated “security zone” in southern Lebanon just north of the Israeli border.

Two helicopter gunships fired five rockets into the main square of Qabrikha, a Shia Muslim village 10 miles north of the Israeli border. Police said one person was killed in the 6:30 a.m. attack.

Rockets Hit Mosque

Reporters in southern Lebanon said two rockets hit the village mosque, which served as headquarters for the Iranian-backed guerrillas of Hezbollah, or Party of God.

Several hours later, four Israeli warplanes made three bombing runs in 15 minutes on a residential Palestinian neighborhood between the Ein el Hilwa and Miye ou Miye refugee camps on the outskirts of Sidon, 25 miles south of Beirut.

Police said one person was killed and four were wounded when a rocket slammed into a one-story house used by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Palestinian guerrillas opened up on the raiding jets with Soviet-made 23-millimeter anti-aircraft guns.

Israel’s previous 16 air raids this year killed 53 people and wounded 171 by police count.