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Israeli Jet Fighters Destroy Base Used by Palestinian Group in Lebanon

January 7, 1991
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Israeli air force jets destroyed a terrorist base in southern Lebanon on Sunday morning in Israel’s second air attack over Lebanon since the year began.

An Israel Defense Force lieutenant was slightly wounded in the attack.

The target was identified as a local headquarters of George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, located in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp southeast of Sidon. The Popular Front is a hard-line faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Three terrorists were killed and six were injured in the attack, according to reports from Lebanon. Police said the raid was carried out by six aircraft, which fired air-to-ground missiles and dropped delayed-action bombs.

Meanwhile, on Israel’s northeastern border, a lone infiltrator from Jordan was killed in an encounter Saturday with an IDF patrol in the Golan Heights, a military spokesman announced.

The infiltration was the latest in a spate of such attempts from Jordan into Israel since last fall. Two in November resulted in IDF fatalities.

The latest infiltration from Jordan occurred near the junction of the Israeli, Jordanian and Syrian borders. A khaki-clad intruder armed with a pistol hid among bushes a few yards inside the barbed-wire border fence.

As an IDF patrol approached, he jumped from concealment and fired at the officer leading the unit. He shouted “Allah akhbar” (God is Great) before he was shot to death.

Jordanian soldiers were seen Sunday morning searching Mukeibe village in Jordan, about 2,000 feet from the Israeli border, from where the infiltrator apparently came.

IDF sources say the infiltrator appeared to have belonged to an Islamic fundamentalist group, which is having a strong showing in that country and is now represented in the Jordanian government. IDF sources predict more future trouble from that element.

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