Israel hits back, Syrians pay

JERUSALEM - Israel yesterday bombed a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, raising the military stakes in the Middle East and casting a shadow over the Jordanian foreign minister's visit with new Palestinian peace proposals.

The dawn raid (local time), just 35km east of Beirut, killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded six in the first Israeli attack on a Syrian position in Lebanon since April 1996.

Israel said the raid was a clear warning to Syrian leaders that they would pay if they did not stop supporting Hizbollah guerrillas in their fight against the Jewish state.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Ron Kitrey said the message to Syria was: "Enough."

The raid was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli soldier by Hizbollah guerrillas on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri denounced the raids as "a grave aggression on Lebanon and Syria" and warned against widening the conflict.

He called on the international community "to act swiftly to contain the repercussions of such tension which could take dangerous dimensions."

Israeli and Palestinian officials were due to meet for another round of security talks at the United States ambassador's Tel Aviv residence after a weekend of violence in Israel and the occupied territories that gave added urgency to the discussions.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signalled he would maintain his tough line against a nearly seven-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence, in which at least 376 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 71 other Israelis have died.

Reuters correspondent Sultan Sleiman, at Dahr al-Beidar in Lebanon's Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley, said: "smoke and fire is billowing over the area where the radar station was hit."

Security sources and witnesses said at least three Syrian soldiers, including an officer, were killed and five wounded. The raid, which Lebanese security sources said was carried out by four jets which fired six rockets at the radar station and one at another nearby hillside Syrian position, followed a special security cabinet meeting chaired by Sharon.

In a statement issued after the planes attacked, the Israeli Government said that despite Israel's implementation of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for its withdrawal from Lebanon, "it has come under repeated terrorist attack on the northern border, the most recent of which was one that killed an Israeli soldier.

"It was the eighth terrorist incident on the northern frontier since the pullout from Lebanon.

"In these incidents, three Israeli soldiers have been killed and three kidnapped," the statement said.

The latest raid revived memories in Israel of Sharon's role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when as Defence Minister he planned a push deep into the country that brought Israeli forces into confrontation with Syrian troops stationed there.

Syria has around 35,000 troops in Lebanon.

In the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen battled for the second consecutive day yesterday in a refugee camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, after Israeli tanks and bulldozers returned.

Palestinians said two camp residents were wounded, but the Israeli force withdrew without destroying any property.

The previous day, bulldozers backed by tanks had knocked down 21 houses in an operation in which 35 Palestinians were reportedly injured.

- REUTERS

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