Israel Retaliates for Fatal Bomb Attack by Shelling Guerrilla Targets in S. Lebanon

Israeli warplanes, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery bombarded suspected guerrilla bases in the hills and villages of southern Lebanon on Monday in a massive retaliation for a weekend attack that killed five Israeli soldiers.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, expressing his nation’s anger over the soldiers’ deaths, vowed that Israeli forces would pursue, catch and punish those in the pro-Iranian Islamic group Hezbollah who had ordered and carried out the bomb attack that killed the five Israelis and wounded five more.

But early today, the Lebanese guerrillas returned fire, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other civilians in a rocket attack on northern Israel, Reuters news agency reported.

Israel’s bombardment stretched across virtually all southern Lebanon--from near the port of Sidon on the Mediterranean coast to the market town of Nabatiyeh and east to the Bekaa Valley--as warplanes and helicopter gunships sought out Hezbollah targets, including leaders’ homes.

Israeli artillery fired through the day Monday, landing as many as 200 shells in 30 minutes; Lebanese police spoke of dozens of villages being reduced to rubble by the barrage. Monday night, Israeli gunboats reportedly shelled suspected Hezbollah targets on the northern Lebanese coast.

“This is the first retaliation,” Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur said in Jerusalem. “But no doubt we will have to fight again and almost everywhere. We cannot afford incidents like that on Sunday.”

Casualty reports were sketchy, but Reuters and Associated Press in southern Lebanon said thousands of people were fleeing northward, their cars packed with clothing and with mattresses on the roofs, to escape the bombardment.

Rabin warned Lebanon and neighboring Syria that Israel holds their governments responsible for permitting Hezbollah activities in southern Lebanon, where Israel maintains a “security zone” about nine miles deep to protect its northern border from infiltration by Palestinian guerrillas.

But Rabin, speaking to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, also reaffirmed his commitment to peace negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors in an effort to end the Middle East conflict; he rejected conservative demands that he freeze those talks in response to guerrilla attacks.

“In the face of these acts of murder and terror, this government has put peace at the top of its goals,” Rabin said. “The government intends to make a serious effort to achieve peace with the Arab countries and with the Palestinians living in the territories (of the West Bank and Gaza Strip).”

Rabin, already blamed by conservatives for encouraging attacks on Israeli troops and settlers by what they regard as his soft approach to the Arabs, stressed that peace could be achieved only on the basis of Israeli security.

He used his speech opening the winter session of the Knesset to reiterate in rather tougher terms than before Israel’s position in the key negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians.

“It is being said here clearly that the present government wants peace with Syria but is not willing to return to the precedent of the territorial price (total withdrawal) that was paid to Egypt for peace,” Rabin said. “We are willing that Israeli forces withdraw to borders that are secure and familiar. I emphasize that we are talking about withdrawal in the Golan Heights--but not from the Golan Heights.”

Rabin, who is also Israel’s defense minister, ordered the reprisal in Lebanon, described as one of the heaviest in years, after a morning visit to Israel’s northern front to assess how Hezbollah had managed to kill so many Israeli soldiers with a roadside bomb Sunday.

In Washington, Israeli and Lebanese delegations to the Middle East peace talks traded accusations over responsibility for the renewed violence in southern Lebanon, but both sides vowed to continue the peace process despite the killing.

Uri Lubrani, Israel’s chief delegate to the talks with Lebanon, said Sunday’s attacks were “another manifestation of the inability of any viable force north of the security zone to stem violence directed against Israel and against Israeli forces.”

Lebanon’s chief delegate, Souheil Chammas, replied that the incidents “are taking place because of (Israel’s) occupation of Lebanon. The outbreak took place in Lebanese territories, not in Israeli territories.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.