Israeli Jets Hit Guerrilla Base : Raiding Party Halted in Southern Lebanon

Israel’s warplanes destroyed a south Lebanon guerrilla base Monday, and its soldiers intercepted a raiding party that apparently sought to seize Israeli hostages.

Military officials said that Israeli soldiers captured two Palestinian guerrillas who planned to enter Israel on a hostage-taking mission. Israel Radio said a third guerrilla escaped.

According to the radio report, one guerrilla of Nayef Hawatmeh’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was wounded in the encounter before dawn on the northern slopes of Mt. Dov in southern Lebanon. No army casualties were reported.

Lebanese police officials said one guerrilla was wounded in the strike by two jets, the second Israeli air raid into Lebanon in five days. They said the base was used by the leftist Syrian National Social Party, a militia backed by Syria.

Follow Car Bombing

The air attacks followed a suicide car bombing that killed eight Israeli soldiers last Wednesday in Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone,” which ranges from 6 to 10 miles deep just north of the border between Israel and Lebanon.

At the United Nations in New York, Lebanon lodged a formal protest of the Israeli air raids.

Israeli jets rocketed the one-story building used by the guerrillas in the village of Beit Lehia near Mashgharah on Monday afternoon, police reported. They said four other houses were damaged in the raid on the village, 9 miles north of the security zone.

A statement by the Israeli military command said the base had been used for guerrilla attacks into northern Israel. It gave no details but said the warplanes returned safely to base.

Monday’s raid was the 17th Israeli air strike inside Lebanon this year. By police count, 89 people have been killed and 143 wounded.

Hostage Family Freed

Meanwhile, soldiers and militiamen of the surrogate South Lebanon Army in the Israeli “security zone” stormed a house and freed a Shia Muslim family held hostage by seven guerrillas, the militia and the Israeli army reported.

Army spokesmen said the rescue occurred in the village of Kfar Kila, near the site of last week’s car bombing.

Six men from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah guerrillas and a 13-year-old girl had seized a house belonging to a seven-member family, the army said. Israeli reports said the guerrillas planned to rest in the house before attempting a raid into Israel.

The father of the family, a member of the South Lebanon Army, escaped and an SLA battalion and an Israeli army unit backed by two helicopter gunships surrounded the village, the army said.

One guerrilla was wounded during a 15-minute gun battle before all seven surrendered, the army said.

A Fatah communique issued in Sidon said the guerrillas were five Palestinians and two Shias led by a 17-year-old Palestinian girl, identified as Kifah Afifi.

Fatah reported a battle with an Israeli patrol but said nothing of a Shia family being taken hostage.

Sources in southern Lebanon said the guerrillas were heading for the Misgav Am border kibbutz, where Palestinian guerrillas seized hostages in 1980. Three Israelis and five guerrillas were killed in a gun battle at that time.