IDF Kills Three Armed Infiltrators Planning Attack in Northern Israel

Three heavily armed Palestinians planning a terrorist attack on Israeli settlements were killed in the southern Lebanon security zone Sunday during a clash with soldiers of the Israel Defense Force’s crack Golani Brigade.

There were no Israeli casualties.

The encounter occurred in the western sector of the zone, just a mile north of Moshav Zar’it in Upper Galilee.

A Palestine Liberation Organization spokesman in the Lebanese port city of Sidon admitted that the heavily armed infiltrators planned to attack an Israeli settlement.

They were identified as members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a component of the PLO led by Mohammed (Abul) Abbas.

The IDF said its patrol spotted the three gunmen and opened fire, killing one with the first burst. The second gunman fired a hand-held LAW missile at the patrol before he was killed.

The third took cover and fired another LAW missile but was killed when the Israeli soldiers charged his position.

The patrol was personally congratulated by Maj. Gen. Yossi Peled, commander of the northern sector, for the exemplary manner in which it executed its mission.

Peled, who announced his retirement over the weekend after 30 years in the IDF, said the clash cast doubts on the veracity of PLO leader Yasir Arafat.

Arafat, who lost credibility by backing Saddam Hussein of Iraq, announced that he had ordered his men to cease attacking Israel from Lebanese soil after the Persian Gulf war ended with Hussein’s defeat.

But Sunday’s encounter means either that Arafat’s statement was untrue or that he can no longer control his own people, Peled said.