Israel Rejects New Invasion Into Lebanon

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir vowed Wednesday to stop guerrilla rocket attacks but denied Israel is about to repeat its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

He spoke as more than 20 rockets crashed into the Galilee panhandle in a rare daylight bombardment that sent 13 people into shock and damaged a bus station. Other missiles crashed into Israel’s self-declared security zone in south Lebanon.

“They have a lot of Katyushas (a type of rocket), but we will overcome them and disarm them,” Shamir told reporters at one of the impact sites.

He said the Israeli response will not be the same as in 1982, when its armor swept up the Mediterranean coast to Beirut in an invasion designed to drive Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon.

Israel Radio said artillery gunners fired back at the guerrilla rocket launchers, Israeli warplanes flew a sortie across the border and schoolchildren in Galilee scurried to bomb shelters.

Israel, its South Lebanon Army militia allies and guerrillas in south Lebanon have been exchanging artillery fire since Hezbollah leader Abbas Moussawi, his wife and child were killed in an Israeli helicopter attack Sunday.

Reports from Lebanon said more than 50 Katyushas had been fired into northern Israel and the security zone overnight and early Wednesday.

Frontier villages in south Lebanon were virtually abandoned Wednesday after thousands of people fled artillery and rocket battles between the two sides.