Lebanon Violence Hobbles U.S.-Led Peace Effort

Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas launched another rocket attack Friday on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, killing one soldier and torpedoing an urgent U.S.-led meeting called to defuse the threat of wider war.

Israel responded quickly, sending warplanes and helicopters to pound suspected Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah struck back later with fresh hits on Israeli positions, according to Lebanese and Israeli reports.

The death of a 19-year-old Israeli sergeant Friday brought to seven the number of Israeli soldiers killed in the last 18 days. Fifteen Lebanese civilians have been wounded in Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes, which badly damaged three electrical power stations.

All told, the new violence complicates efforts to revive peace talks between Israel and Syria, Lebanon’s political and military master. Negotiations aimed at ending decades of conflict were launched amid much fanfare at the White House in December, but they have stalled.

The Hezbollah attack Friday coincided with an urgently convened meeting of international truce monitors trying to ease the crisis. Upon learning of the attack, the Israeli delegation walked out of the meeting. It had hardly begun.

The monitors, led by the U.S. and France, oversee compliance with a 4-year-old truce agreement in which the Israelis and the guerrillas are to refrain from firing on or from civilian areas. Each side accuses the other of violating the terms.

Israeli officials said Friday that it made no sense to continue the discussion because Hezbollah had broken the rules again with the latest rocketing, which Israel said was launched from a village.

The Hezbollah attack zeroed in on an Israeli military post at Beaufort Castle, a Crusader-era fortress in the center of the 9-mile-deep strip of southern Lebanon that Israel occupies.

Israel has controlled the southern Lebanon strip since 1985 to form what it says is a buffer to guard Israel’s northern communities. But the occupation is increasingly unpopular among Israelis, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak reiterated Friday night on television his pledge to withdraw from Lebanon by July.

“The warfare is entering its last stages,” he told two TV interviewers, bristling as they repeatedly grilled him about the latest death. “Within 4 1/2 months, I am determined to put an end to this tragedy in Lebanon . . . and to bring the boys home to the international border.”

In the meantime, he vowed, Lebanon faces “very painful strikes” in retaliation for Friday’s killing and any other assaults.

As the heated exchange between Barak and his interviewers showed, the fighting is fraying nerves and demoralizing many Israelis.

Through last year, the Israeli army reduced its number of casualties dramatically by concentrating its presence in fortified outposts while cutting its overall troop size and relying on greater air power. That strategy protected it from Hezbollah’s preferred tool, roadside bombs. In recent weeks, Hezbollah has shifted to a greater use of antitank missiles: Israeli and U.N. officials say Hezbollah is now equipped with high-precision U.S.-made missiles that reportedly came from Iran.

With better training and better intelligence, Hezbollah has been able to pinpoint Israeli positions with deadly precision, firing sometimes, but not always, from nearby Lebanese villages.

The U.N. maintains that most of the recent deadly hits were not fired from inside civilian areas.

Israel has accused Syria of failing to use its influence to rein in Hezbollah--and on Friday the Clinton administration agreed.

“Clearly, Syria has influence with Hezbollah, and at this point, it is our view that the evidence is clear they need to exercise their influence more effectively,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in Washington.

But among Lebanese, Hezbollah’s military campaign is seen now as part of its end-game domestic political strategy to claim the lion’s share of credit after what most observers agree is the inevitable withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon.

Casting itself as the defender of the nation’s dignity, Hezbollah wants to reap the political benefits in parliamentary elections expected to take place late this year or next, analysts said.

“Hezbollah wants to ensure that it will be able to transform its military gains into political clout,” said Michael Young, a Lebanese political commentator. Hezbollah wants to emerge as the major Shiite party in Lebanon, he said.

“They want to take full credit for liberating the south,” agreed Tewfic Mishlawi, another Lebanese analyst, so that they will be able to boast that “the Israeli army was for the first time defeated by an Arab foe.”

Times staff writer John Daniszewski in Beirut contributed to this report.