Israel Launches New Invasion Into Lebanon

An Israeli armored column punched out of Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone” in southern Lebanon on Thursday toward two Shiite Muslim villages, U.N. sources said.

The villages are policed by U.N. forces, which dispatched armored cars and armored personnel carriers to block the road used by the advancing Israelis.

The two villages, Yater and Kafra, were pounded Wednesday by Israeli artillery barrages responding to rocket attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite guerrillas.

A U.N. officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Israeli force was made up of eight Merkava tanks, three armored personnel carriers and a jeep.

It made its thrust out of the security zone at 7 a.m. from the village of Beit Leif, rolled without resistance through the Shiite village of Srobbine and headed toward Yater and Kafra.

“We have dispatched big reinforcements to our Nepalese contingent in the two villages to block the road for the Israelis and try to dissuade them from entering either village,” the officer said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir denied Israel is about to repeat its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

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, 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.