Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Israel attacks Muslim guerrillas with vengeance Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 15:01:10 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Israel attacks Muslim guerrillas with vengeance \BY Jack Redden \CR REUTERS NEWS AGENCY \DT KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel - Israel massed tanks on its border with Lebanon and its planes struck Muslim fundamentalist guerrilla targets in Lebanese territory to avenge a rocket attack that killed a boy in Israel. But Israeli and Lebanese security sources denied an Israeli radio report that unusual numbers of reinforcements had crossed into the Jewish state's self-declared security zone in south Lebanon. Army officers said Israel was poised to retaliate if pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) guerrillas resumed Katyusha rocket attacks against Israel and the security strip. "There is a large concentration of tank forces on the northern border inside Israel," an army spokeswoman said. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, head of the army's northern command, said: "We are deployed and doing everything necessary for now and for the future in case someone tries to disrupt normal life." "Whoever tries to disrupt our life should know his own life is going to be disrupted," Gen. Mordechai told reporters in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where a rocket killed a 14-year-old boy yesterday. He declined to answer when pressed by reporters if this meant Israel had sent extra tanks into the 9-mile-wide strip inside south Lebanon. In the occupied territories, Palestinians wounded three Israelis in two attacks. Gunmen shot and wounded an Israeli couple shopping at a market near the West Bank town of Jenin, an Army spokesman said. At a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian man attacked an Israeli with an ax and wounded him lightly, military sources said. In Jerusalem, police dispersed about 1,000 Jewish settlers demonstrating outside the house of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to complain of a lack of security in occupied Arab lands. Security sources in Lebanon said they had seen no unusual reinforcement of Israeli forces in the zone since 16 big guns with ammunition trucks and armored troop carriers arrived there Monday. Guerrillas fired about 30 122mm Katyusha rockets from outside the zone, killing the Israeli boy and two Lebanese inside the security zone. Seven rockets landed in Israel, military sources said. Mr. Rabin vowed to avenge the attacks, but he said Israel would not break off peace talks with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians in Washington. President Bush also said the fighting would not derail the talks. Two hours after Mr. Rabin spoke, state-run Israeli radio said "an armored force" had crossed into the zone where Israel has about 1,000 troops alongside 3,000 allied Lebanese militiamen. It gave no other details in the report, which cleared military censorship. Israel does not normally release details of military operations until they are over. Israel last thrust out of the zone in fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in February. "There is at this time no intention to carry out a widespread Israeli attack in Lebanon, but if there continues to be a worsening in the steps taken by the terrorists, this policy will be reconsidered," said a military source who declined to be identified. There have been no obvious troop movements or shelling since the Katyusha attack. A rocket crashed into a four-story apartment building in a working-class area of Kiryat Shmona at dawn, killing Vadim Shuchmann, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who was sleeping on a porch. Five relatives were wounded. In Lebanon, security sources said a rocket killed a Lebanese schoolteacher and his 18-month-old son in the security zone. Israeli warplanes hit Hezbollah targets in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley after the attack. The rocket attack was in response to a fierce Israeli air and artillery bombardment of Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon Monday - itself in retaliation for the killing of five Israeli soldiers there on Sunday. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah blew up the soldiers in a road ambush. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM