Violence between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon has subsided following a tense weekend marked by Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel and fighting in the security zone that left two Israeli soldiers dead.
The weekend of violence, which came in the wake of a deadly Aug. 4 Israeli air attack on a Lebanese village, occurred as U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in the region in an attempt to breathe life into the long-stalled Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations.
Heavy fighting erupted in the southern Lebanon security zone Saturday when an Israeli patrol suddenly encountered a heavily armed unit of Hezbollah, the Islamic fundamentalist movement. The unit was apparently on its way to carry out a surprise attack on the Israel Defense Force in the zone.
Both groups were caught by surprise in the chance encounter, but Hezbollah gunmen managed to fire the first shots, killing two Israeli soldiers, before other members of the IDF unit managed to return fire.
The two Israelis killed were identified as Capt. Avshalom Oren, 24, of Tiberias, and Cpl. Evgeny Vratzlavsky, 22, of Jerusalem.
At about the same time Saturday, Hezbollah launched a series of Katyusha rocket attacks on units of the IDF and its allied South Lebanon Army within the security zone and on civilian targets in the Galilee area of Israel.
One rocket landed early Saturday morning on a house in a western Galilee township, leaving three Israeli children slightly injured by splintering glass and shrapnel.
Most of the remaining Katyushas and mortar bombs landed in fields, causing extensive property damage.
As a result of the rocket attacks, Israeli police closed some five miles of beaches south of the border with Lebanon, but they did not order civilians into bomb shelters.
Bathers on northern beaches between Nahariya and the Lebanon border were ordered out of the water and away from the open beaches, and many tourists at vacation spots in the Galilee began to leave the area.
A HIGHLY UNUSUAL APOLOGY
Hezbollah officials said the rocket attacks on northern Israel were in retaliation for the Aug. 4 Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Deir Zahrani. The attack reportedly left seven civilians dead and 17 others wounded.
Israel issued a highly unusual apology for that attack, saying that missiles mistakenly struck the Lebanese village during a series of separate strikes on terrorist positions in southern Lebanon.
However, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri refused to accept the Israeli apology. Attending the funeral last Friday of those killed, he said the attack “was a premeditated crime by the Israeli leadership. It was clearly a terrorist act designed to terrorize civilians.”
Hariri called for an unconditional Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Israel also conveyed its apologies for the attack to the Syrian government, the leading power broker in Lebanon.
The Israeli air force has, meanwhile, launched an inquiry into the causes of the mishap in an effort to establish whether it was caused by human error, a technical malfunction of the plane’s targeting computer or a problem in the construction and operation of the missiles.
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