Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Israeli airstrike lands within 12 miles of Lebanese capital

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
08 June 2004

Israeli Air Force warplanes penetrated deep into Lebanese airspace last night to launch what military sources said was a retaliatory attack on a base used by Palestinian militants south of Beirut.

The airstrike in the hills at Naameh, within 12 miles of the Lebanese capital, was launched in what the military here said was a response to a missile aimed at an Israeli naval vessel yesterday morning.

The strike went closer to the country's capital than any carried out by the Israelis since they pulled their forces out of southern Lebanon four years ago. Palestinian guerrillas belonging to the small Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command have operated an underground base in the hills, a frequent target for attacks during Israel's 20 year occupation of southern Lebanon.

Lebanese sources said of the 107mm rockets fired towards Israel yesterday morning that three had landed on the outskirts of the Naqoura, just short of the border with Israel, and that a fourth had fallen into the Mediterranean Sea.

Confirming last night's attack on "a target near Beirut" the Israeli military said that the "state of Israel is determined stop terror acts emanating from Lebanon and places the responsibility for these terror activities on the governments of Lebanon and Syria."

Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said: "This is a signal to the Lebanese government ... It is responsible for what goes on in its territory."

The Israeli attack comes a month after an Israeli soldier was killed and two others seriously wounded by Hizbollah anti-tank missiles and mortar shellfire in the disputed area of the Shebaa Farms in the occupied Golan heights.

A spokesman for the PFLP-GC, headed by Ahmed Jibril, said the planes "attacked humanitarian positions and a clinic", and added that "so far there are no human losses, only material losses". There were also no casualties reported as a result of the earlier attack.

While the Syrian and Iranian backed Hizbollah is normally regarded by Israel as the main border threat, radical Palestinian guerrillas have also have fired rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon. On 23 March, Israeli helicopter gunships fired at guerrillas who were launching rockets toward Israel from about six miles north of the border. Two PFLP-GC militants were killed.

Meanwhile the fate of Ariel Sharon's administration as a majority government was still hanging on whether the small, far-right National Religious Party would walk out of the coalition in protest at Sunday's cabinet vote to accept the withdrawal of 7,500 settlers from Gaza. Despite a series of consultations among themselves and rabbis associated with the party, the NRP had still not reached a decision last night. One NRP minister, Effie Eitam, who voted against the decision, has been pressing for the party to walk out, but the Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been urging it not to do so for fear it would encourage Mr Sharon to form a unity coalition with Labour if the NRP leaves.

© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=529317