Israeli Planes Bomb Guerrilla Bases in Lebanon

Israeli warplanes Wednesday bombed Palestinian and pro-Iranian guerrilla bases on the outskirts of this southern port city.

In Israel, the army reported that troops shot and killed three guerrillas on the border with Lebanon.

Lebanese police said a two-story command post used by three radical guerrilla factions in Sidon was demolished in one of Wednesday’s two air raids. The attack began at 7 a.m., they said.

At least five guerrillas were missing in the rubble and presumed killed, police said. At least three other guerrillas were wounded, they said.

A statement by Israel’s army command said the warplanes hit “two terrorist targets” east of Sidon.

The statement said “the targets were headquarters and ammunition dumps of Hezbollah and Abu Nidal.” It said plans for three recent guerrilla infiltrations into Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon were made at the targeted sites.

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group active in Lebanon, and the Abu Nidal faction is a radical Palestinian guerrilla group operating outside the Palestine Liberation Organization with support from Syria and Libya.

By police count, six people have been killed and 45 wounded in Israel’s four previous raids into Lebanon this year.

The killings of the three guerrillas on the Israeli-Lebanese border occurred during the third attempted infiltration in four days.

The border incident occurred near the Lebanese village of Hula, about a mile west of the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, a military spokesman said.

He said troops spotted the three guerrillas, opened fire and killed them. The spokesman, who cannot be identified according to army regulations, said the Israelis suffered no casualties.

Security sources said the area has been the site of increased troop activity in recent days, and reporters observed flares there.

Also Wednesday, soldiers shot and killed a 20-year-old Palestinian in a clash in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis and wounded eight other Palestinians in clashes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Arab doctors said.

On Sunday, troops killed two guerrillas and captured two others after several rockets were fired into the Israeli border town of Metulla. George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Damascus-based Palestine Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.