The Israeli air force continued Wednesday to bombard Palestinian targets in southern Lebanon for the third consecutive day.
An attack at midnight and another in the morning reportedly killed three and injured nine people. At least 22 people died and 82 were injured in air raids Monday and Tuesday.
Defense Minister Moshe Arens told the Knesset that the attacks were part of an ongoing policy to harass terrorists and interrupt their preparations for attacks on Israel.
Uri Lubrani, the coordinator of Israeli operations in Lebanon, told Israel Radio that the latest raids were not a response to any specific terrorist activity but a deterrent to future threats.
At the United Nations in New York, Lebanon’s ambassador, Khalil Makkawi, criticized the Israeli raids in a letter Tuesday and said he might later request an emergency meeting of the Security Council.
The raids, he wrote, confirm “Israel’s persistent policy of disturbing the security and political situation in Lebanon by any means at its disposal.”
Referring to Israel’s “continued acts of aggression,” Makkawi wrote that the council should “adopt a responsible position by putting an end to Israel’s arrogance and flagrant contempt for international conventions and laws.”
Here in Israel, observers said that the preemptive nature of the air assaults have two goals: in addition to keeping terrorists off-balance, the attacks are meant to warn Syria to prevent the Palestine Liberation Organization and other armed groups hostile to Israel from moving south to the Israeli border.
The Israeli daily Al Hamishmar, quoting the Beirut newspaper A-Nahar, reported Wednesday that Syria has agreed to allow the PLO to bear arms in Lebanon until Damascus gets a commitment from Washington that Israel will abandon the security zone it controls in southern Lebanon.
‘NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY
Military sources said Palestinian groups that had gotten the green light from Syria to move south were the main targets of the latest raids.
An Israel Defense Force spokesman said the midnight air raid was against bases of Ahmed Jabril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and a base of the Syrian Socialist Ba’ath Party near Laba’a, east of Sidon.
The early morning attack was targeted at another terrorist base in the same area, the spokesman said.
The attacks coincided with the ninth anniversary of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Lubrani has insisted the escalation of Israeli air activity over Lebanon is not the start of a wider offensive.
“It is merely activity designed to pre-empt threats and in our view ‘business as usual,’ ” he told an Israel Radio interviewer.
“Sometimes, business is more than usual and sometimes less,” he added. “These are threats we found we had to do something about,” but they are “nothing out of the ordinary.”
(JTA correspondent Aliza Marcus at. the United Nations contributed to this report.)
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