Hizbullah hits back in Shebaa Farms

News, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

US rebukes Lebanon, syria over ‘provocative escalation’
Khalil Fleihan and
Samer Wehbe
Daily Star correspondents, 8/9/03

Hizbullah attacked Israeli military positions in the Shebaa Farms area Friday, drawing retaliatory air strikes and artillery fire.
The attack was the second operation of its kind this year, and the first in almost seven months. The operation began at 9.45am and was carried out by groups named after Ali Hussein Saleh, the Hizbullah official who was killed last Saturday when a bomb tore his car apart. The resistance movement had blamed Israel for the attack.
Friday’s attack, which targeted military outposts at Roueissat al-Alam, Al-Sammaqa and Al-Radar inside the Shebaa Farms area, came amid a large-scale Israeli mobilization that began a week ago, for fear of threats made by Hizbullah’s secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah following a stalemate in negotiations over the swapping of prisoners.
The statement pledged that the Islamic resistance, Hizbullah’s military wing, would continue its struggle “until all the holy aims for which the noble martyrs have died are realized.”
At 10.15am, resistance movement fighters again attacked previously targeted positions using “appropriate weapons,” the statement added. Black smoke was seen rising from at least one position, according to witnesses.
The Israeli Army maintained its occupation of the Shebaa Farms area when it pulled out of South Lebanon in 2000. The area was captured from Syria in 1967, but is now claimed by Lebanon.
According to Hizbullah’s Al-Manar Television, quoting unnamed security sources, the attacks resulted in a number of casualties among Israeli soldiers. The program did not elaborate.
One report quoted Hizbullah’s deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, saying there were “definite casualties” among Israeli soldiers and the coming hours would reveal the extent of losses incurred.
“Today’s operation is part of Hizbullah’s policy and decision to continue the armed resistance to liberate our land,” Hizbullah’s legislator, Baabda MP Ali Ammar, told Abu Dhabi Television.
In retaliation, Israeli forces heavily shelled the eastern hills of Kfar Shouba, the vicinity of Birket Shaar, the southern outskirts of Rashaya Fakhar, the surroundings of Halta Farm and Al-Mari, using 122-millimeter artillery.
Israeli warplanes carried out two air raids targeting the vicinity of Rashaya Fakhar, the outskirts of Halta, the southern hills of Kfar Shouba and the Shebaa-Ain Ata road and were met with anti-aircraft fire from Hizbullah positions. They dropped more than 12 missiles on the targeted areas.
Numerous overflights of helicopter gunships were also recorded over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and in the Shebaa Farms.
The Israeli raids caused large fires in forests lying on the southern outskirts of Kfar Shouba, and the confrontation lasted for some two hours, after which a cautious calm prevailed in the southern region.
Lebanese diplomatic sources said the Foreign Ministry did not consider the attack a breach of the “calm” that had prevailed for months along the Lebanese-Israeli border. “Israel’s assassination of Saleh was such a breach. Hizbullah’s operation was a retaliation,” one source said.
The sources said the ministry contacted the United Nations to explain that the operation did not violate the Blue Line that the organization drew in 2000 to demarcate the Israeli pullout. “Shebaa Farms is outside the operations zone of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon,” another source said.
The US administration responded angrily to Hizbullah’s shelling of Israeli positions, a State Department official said.
American diplomats told Lebanon and Syria that the administration was seriously concerned about what a US official described as a “calculated and provocative escalation” by the group, and told the two governments it was important to restrain further attacks.
Further, the administration told Syria and Lebanon the time had come for them to end their support for Hizbullah’s “terrorist operations,” said the unnamed official.
The Israeli Army warned Syria and Lebanon that they will face the consequences unless they restrain Hizbullah guerrillas from further attacks on Israeli targets.
Major General Beni Gantz, the head of Israel’s northern command, said the Israelis had sustained no casualties in the exchanges, which he said lasted for around an hour, although several houses in a Druze village on the Israeli side of the border were damaged, which he said would have taken place with the knowledge of Syria.
“Hizbullah opened fire on our area with several dozen shells and anti-tank (rockets) and some form of rocket,” Gantz said. “A few shells fell by northern sides of the Golan Heights.”
Meanwhile, judicial sources said those detained for questioning in connection with Saleh’s assassination proved to be two young boys, not over 15 years old. They were found to have in their possession two wireless sets on the roof of a building facing the assassination spot, but indicated they had stolen the sets from a carpenter and were going to play with them.
Further questioning is under way, including of the carpenter, who said the sets were only for business use. With agencies

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

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