Hezbollah Retaliates for Slaying by Israel

Israel wrestled Wednesday with the wisdom of cross-border assassination after the killing of a Lebanese Shiite militia leader was followed by the heaviest rocket attack on Israel’s northern communities in more than a year.

The overnight barrage, which left 17 civilians and two soldiers slightly injured and sent thousands of people running to bomb shelters, also renewed a simmering debate here about Israel’s costly occupation of southern Lebanon and raised questions for many about the risks of further retaliation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, however, that the nation would continue to strike at those who threaten its civilians.

“We obviously reserve the right to take continuous action” against Lebanese guerrillas, Netanyahu told reporters during a visit to the community of Kiryat Shemona, which bore the brunt of the bombardment. “We will do that until there is peace in south Lebanon.”

A few hours later, an Israeli army helicopter came under antiaircraft fire over the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon and struck back at the source of the fire, a Lebanese army position. A Lebanese soldier was wounded in the attack, Reuters news agency reported. And there were reports of shelling late Wednesday between the Israeli army and its Lebanese allies on one side and Shiite militias on the other within the 9-mile-deep strip of Lebanon that Israel occupies as a security zone.

The latest round of violence in the troubled border area began Tuesday near the Lebanese port of Tyre, when an Israeli helicopter fired two rockets at a car carrying Hossam Amin, a midlevel commander of the Lebanese Shiite Amal militia. Amin, who had been implicated by Israel in attacks against its soldiers, was killed.

The bombardment of Kiryat Shemona and other Galilee communities began within hours, with dozens of rockets crashing into houses, cars, public buildings and power lines. The Israeli government said the damage from the brief but intensive barrage was more than $500,000.

On Wednesday, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization, a rival to Amal, said it had fired the Katyushas, which Israel said violated the 1996 “understandings” between the two sides to refrain from targeting civilians.

But several prominent legislators, former military officials and commentators said Israel should have predicted the retaliation against the northern communities and urged residents to take shelter. Others questioned the legitimacy of the attack against Amin.

Ori Orr, a former Israeli army commander for northern Israel and the occupied strip of southern Lebanon, criticized the assassination, saying Israel should have “thought twice if such an operation was worthwhile.”

“If you think you can keep tens of thousands of people in shelters . . . then go ahead and carry out such attacks,” Orr, a legislator from the opposition Labor Party, said in an interview with Israel’s Army Radio. “But . . . you can’t do this.”

But others urged even more forceful retaliation.