VARIOUS: ISRAELI PLANES STRIKE SYRIAN ANTI-AIRCRAFT POSTS IN LEBANON AS HIZBOLLAH GUERRILLAS RETURN MORTAR FIRE

Record ID: 276752

  • Title: VARIOUS: ISRAELI PLANES STRIKE SYRIAN ANTI-AIRCRAFT POSTS IN LEBANON AS HIZBOLLAH GUERRILLAS RETURN MORTAR FIRE
  • Date: 2nd July 2001
  • Summary: (U6) ISRAELI-LEBANESE BORDER, ISRAEL NEAR SHEBAA FARMS (JULY 1, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. LV SMOKE DRIFTING FROM ATTACKED ISRAELI SITES BEHIND HILL; LV ISRAELI SHELLING SMOKE ON HILL (6 SHOTS) 0.42 2. LV ISRAELI POST OVERLOOKING SHEBAA; LV EXPLOSION OF AN ISRAELI SHELL; SLV ISRAELI POST; SLV HOUSE AND SHELLING SMOKE IN THE BACKGROUND (3 SHOTS) 0.57
  • Embargoed: 17th July 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM / ISRAELI-LEBANESE BORDER, ISRAEL / BEKAA VALLEY AND SHATILA CAMP IN BEIRUT, LEBANON / GOLAN HEIGHTS NEAR THE SYRIAN BORDER
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA5BBVTB5NSWT0HTU4GRJADZH49
  • Story Text: Israeli planes have struck a Syrian anti-aircraft post
    in Lebanon and Hizbollah guerrillas have fired mortar bombs at
    Israeli positions in tit-for-tat attacks threatening to open
    new fronts in Middle East conflict.

    At least two Syrian soldiers and one Lebanese were
    reported wounded in Sunday's (July 1) Israeli air raid on the
    strategic Bekaa Valley, where Syria has a large concentration
    of the more than 20,000 troops it keeps in Lebanon.

    Lebanon's Hizbollah group fired missiles at Israeli
    positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms shortly after Israeli
    warplanes struck a Syrian anti-aircraft position in eastern
    Lebanon.

    Israel responded to Hizbollah attacks by shelling the
    Lebanese border town of Kfar Shouba, wounding at least one
    person. Hundreds of others fled their homes.

    The shelling, which also hit the nearby town of Shebaa,
    ended after about an hour, but Israeli warplanes continued to
    circle low over the area.

    The incidents took place two days after Hizbollah
    guerrillas wounded an Israeli soldier in a rocket attack in
    the Shebaa border area.

    Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the
    assault was in retaliation for a Hizbollah rocket attack on
    Friday (June 29) which Ben-Eliezer blamed on Syria, the main
    powerbroker in Lebanon.

    But he played down prospects of war with Syria after the
    air strike saying that the threat of wider conflict was
    minimal.

    "Thank God we are surrounded by countries that if they
    have anything in common, it is not to lead the Middle East
    into war," he said. "I am sure it is not in Syria's interests
    to do that."
    Hizbollah, Lebanon and Syria view the Shebaa Farms region,
    located at the junction of the Lebanese border and the Israeli
    occupied Golan Heights, as Lebanese territory and say Israel's
    presence there means that its May 2000 troop withdrawal from
    south Lebanon remains incomplete.

    Hizbollah, the main force in driving Israel from south
    Lebanon in May last year after a 22-year occupation, called
    its counterstrike a defence of national dignity, and its head
    Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Israel was storing-up trouble for
    itself.

    "The Israelis are leaping into danger and playing with
    fire," he told a rally near the area where the Syrian position
    was hit. "It will do them no good."
    In Beirut, hundreds of Palestinian refugees at Shatila
    camp marched in a demonstration called for by the Islamic
    Hamas group to demand that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
    be tried for his alleged role in the Sabra and Shatila
    massacre in 1982.

    Demonstrators carried Palestine and Islamic Hamas flags
    and displayed pictures depicting Sharon as a vampire.

    Israel's Christian militia allies massacred hundreds of
    Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugees camp
    in Beirut during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

    Israeli tanks have taken up positions in the Golan Heights
    near the border with Syria as a heightened state of alert was
    sounded after the Israeli warplanes struck the Syrian
    anti-aircraft post in Lebanon.


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