An Israel Defense Force mop-up operation against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon escalated into serious fighting, involving tanks and close-quarters combat, according to reports from Lebanon and Israel.
There were diplomatic repercussions at the United Nations and an appeal by the U.S. State Department for all sides to exercise restraint.
The reports of fighting in southern Lebanon coincided with Israel’s disclosure that a Katyusha rocket scored a direct hit on the Kiryat Shmona bus terminal Wednesday, damaging its roof. A dozen people were treated for shock.
On Thursday, two IDF soldiers were killed and three others wounded in the IDF’s incursion into Shi’ite villages, just north of the central sector of the security zone, the IDF spokesman said in a delayed announcement Thursday night.
Sources in Lebanon reported that 25 Lebanese had been killed outside the security zone.
Radio Beirut said Israeli gunners shelled 10 Lebanese villages. Reports on Thursday evening from Lebanon said IDF forces briefly occupied Yatar village, facing the central sector of the security zone.
The report said the Israeli troops withdrew in a fierce gunbattle with guerrillas.
Yatar, and its sister village, Kafra, were targets of heavy artillery attack by the IDF and its allied South Lebanon Army. The villagers abandoned their homes Wednesday after the SLA commander, Gen. Antoine Lehad, warned they were about to be bombarded.
U.S. EXPRESSES ‘DEEP CONCERN’
Although residents of Upper Galilee had a respite Wednesday night from rocket attacks, two more Katyusha salvos hit the region Thursday. One at noon caused no casualties or damage Another, which landed in the Galilee panhandle in the afternoon, caused minor damage, but no one was hurt.
Israeli forces were said to be employing 17 tanks and assault helicopters, in an attempt to route Hezbollah guerrillas, who have been launching rockets against Israel since Sunday.
If the reports are correct, it is the first ground action in a battle fought with rockets artillery and air power since Israeli helicopters ambushed and killed Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Musawi in southern Lebanon on Sunday.
Radio Beirut reported, meanwhile, that Amal the mainstream Shi’ite militia long at loggerheads with the Iranian-backed fundamentalist Hezbollah announced it would join forces with its erstwhile foe in their common struggle against Israel.
In Washington, State Department spokes woman Margaret Tutwiler expressed “deep concern” Thursday about “escalating violence” in northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
The State Department has made “high-level demarches” to Israel, Lebanon and Syria “to urge the exercise of maximum restraint in order to bring the violence to an end,” she said.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali summoned Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Yoram Aridor, to receive a protest.
The U.N. chief expressed “grave concern” about the violence, and, unlike the United States, appeared to lay the blame exclusively on Israel.
SKIRMISHES WITH U.N. TROOPS
Boutros-Ghali ordered Israel to withdraw its troops immediately from the zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by international peacekeeping forces after the IDF got into a serious confrontation with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
The IDF incursion into southern Lebanon was officially described as a “cleaning-up operation” employing “limited forces.”
IDF and SLA artillery pounded abandoned villages, apparently hoping the local population would hold Hezbollah responsible for the destruction of their homes.
As the IDF engaged Hezbollah holdouts, attempts by UNIFIL to intervene resulted in angry exchanges between IDF and UNIFIL commanders.
Physical clashes were reported when IDF bulldozers shoved aside UNIFIL and other vehicles and set up roadblocks.
Two Fijian soldiers of UNIFIL were wounded in cross fire between the IDF and Lebanese gunmen. A UNIFIL spokesman complained that the Israelis refused to provide a helicopter to evacuate the injured troops.
Eventually, the Italian government provided a helicopter, which took the wounded soldiers to the UNIFIL headquarters hospital at Rosh Hanikra, in Israel’s north.
One of the soldiers was transferred to Rambam Hospital in Haifa for major surgery.
(JTA correspondent Howard Rosenberg in Washington contributed to this report.)
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