4 Hurt as Israeli Troops Fire on Revelers at Lebanon Border

Israeli troops opened fire Saturday across the Lebanese-Israeli border as about 200 people demonstrated and two tried to cross the fence, witnesses said. One man said three Jordanians and a Lebanese celebrating the end of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon were wounded.

Tarek Tahboub, head of the Jordanian Doctors Assn., said a delegation of 150 people representing 14 Jordanian groups was visiting the Fatima Gate separating Lebanon and Israel when the soldiers opened fire.

Tahboub said a member of the Jordanian delegation, joined by about 50 Lebanese and Palestinians, stood along the border fence shouting, “Allahu akbar!” (Arabic for “God is great!”) when Israeli soldiers emerged from a border outpost. One of them opened fire at the crowd, injuring four people, he said.

“There was no provocation from our part. We did not throw stones, we did not cut through the fence. We were just shouting in celebration,” Tahboub said from a hospital in Marjayoun, six miles north of the Fatima Gate, where the wounded were treated and released.

A witness at Kfar Kila, however, said that members of the delegation were shouting anti-Israel slogans and that two people, whose affiliations were not known, tried to cross the border fence.

Israeli soldiers fired warning shots in the air, then aimed at the men’s legs when the two did not retreat, the witness said, insisting on anonymity. He said the soldiers fired rubber bullets and live ammunition.

Saturday’s incident was the most serious since Israel completed its troop pullout from southern Lebanon on May 24. The gate at the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila has been a gathering spot for the curious and angry, who have regularly let loose with stones and insults at an Israeli outpost 15 feet across the border. Four other people have been wounded there by Israeli troops since the withdrawal.