Israel Warns Lebanon Not to Permit Guerrillas to Operate from Its Territory

Israel has officially warned Lebanon not to permit its territory to be used as a base for terrorist attacks, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today. The second mortar attack in five days from Lebanese soil developed shortly after midnight this morning and Israeli forces, for the first time, returned the fire. According to a military spokesman, three shells exploded harmlessly in a field belonging to the northern Galilee settlement of Margaliot. An investigation confirmed that the fire originated across the Lebanese border. A Lebanese army report in Beirut today claimed that Israeli mortar fire had killed a woman and a child and destroyed or damaged several houses in the border village of Houleh last night.

(Lebanon protested to the Security Council today against what it called “wanton and premeditated aggression” by Israel and complained that it had been subjected for a week to “continued threats and open provocations.” The Lebanese complaint denied that guerrillas had used Lebanese territory as the base for attacks against Israel. A UN spokesman said today that members of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization — the existence of which Israel no longer recognizes — were investigating the border incident.)

Mortar fire from across the Lebanese border hit Kibbutz Manera in northwest Galilee last Thursday. It was the first shooting incident along the Israel-Lebanese frontier in almost a year. Lebanese authorities denied that the fire had come from their territory but an investigation by Israeli units confirmed that it had. Observers here expressed the belief that El Fatah terrorists were trying to establish a Lebanese front for incursions against Israel partly because they are suffering increasingly heavier losses in their marauding ventures from bases in Jordan.