Israel Urges Syrian Intervention Amid Escalating Violence in Lebanon

In the wake of escalating violence in southern Lebanon this week, Israeli officials are urging Syria to prevent attacks on Israeli forces.

Education Minister Amnon Rubinstein said Monday that Syria, which has more than 30,000 troops in Lebanon, could the escalation of tensions in southern Lebanon if it wanted to.

“The fact that Syria does not prevent theses attacks is not very encouraging,” he told Israel Radio.

“The general assumption is that Syria uses south Lebanon as a way to force Israel to make concessions. I don’t think this is an effective weapon.

“A much more effective (way) would be to the contrary: to come to terms with Israeli public opinion, to stop these attacks, and to sit down and talk business,” Rubinstein said.

Rubinstein’s remarks followed a series of attacks of Israeli forces by the Islamic fundamentalist Hezbollah in southern Lebanon this week.

On Sunday, Hezbollah ambushed a routine Israeli patrol in the eastern sector of the security zone, killing one Israeli officer and wounding seven soldiers.

Lt. Ariel Ovadia, the 20-year-old officer killed in Sunday’s ambush, was laid to rest here Monday.

Four of the attackers were killed in an ensuing clash.

Also on Monday, two more Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon were wounded when their vehicle drove over a land mine.

One of soldiers’ feet was amputated. The second soldier was lightly wounded.

Military sources said the incident occurred when the soldiers were searching the area where the previous day’s attack had taken place.

However, Israel Television reported that the explosion was not connected to Sunday’s ambush and that the mine apparently was laid during the 1970s.

Likud Knesset member David Levy, reacting to the recent attacks, demanded that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who is currently on a five-day visit to the Far East, cut short his trip and return home.

Levy told Israel Radio that it was time for Israel to change the rules of the game and take a strong, aggressive approach in the security zone.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking U.S. State Department official visited Lebanon last Friday in an effort to seek improved ties that could include the lifting of a 1987 travel ban for Americans to Lebanon.

Robert Pelletreau Jr., assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, met with Lebanese President Elias Hrawi and other government leaders. It was the first visit to Lebanon by an American official in a year.

According to local media reports, the United States wants Hrawi’s government to put a stop to the Hezbollah movement’s activities in southern Lebanon as part of a package of measures aimed at securing better ties with the United States.