Israeli jets strike south Lebanon again

Hoss said Levy’s threats were part of Israel’s "terrorism" against Lebanon.

"In making these threats, he reminds us of the genocide mentality that characterised Nazism in Hitler’s time," Hoss said. He added that as the guerrillas were responding to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, "we say that the solution, simply, would be to terminate the Israeli occupation."

The 11th straight day of Israeli strikes on Wednesday, following raids on Lebanese power stations and guerrilla bases, drew further condemnation from Arab states and pushed back the chance of resuming the peace talks between Israel and Syria that were suspended indefinitely last month.

"This aggression exposes the true intentions of the Israelis towards the peace process," Jordanian legislators said in a statement. Saudi Arabia said the attack constituted "the biggest damage to the middle east peace process."

Israeli jets fired 18 missiles in three daytime and three nighttime raids yesterday along a 20 km-stretch of south Lebanon from Nabatiyeh town to near Majdal Silim village, Lebanese security officials said.

The targets were guerrilla hideouts or launch sites for rockets, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, even as families sheltered in bunkers in northern Israel on Thursday, hoping Lebanese guerrillas would not launch the Katyusha rockets which could escalate the latest violence and further dent the peace process, the population of Beirut shivered thanks to electricity shortages triggered by Israel’s bombing of three Lebanese power stations on Tuesday morning.

As international concern mounted that the fighting could prevent a restart of the stalled Syrian-Israeli peace talks, Israel’s own attacks, which began with the bombing of the Lebanese power stations, appeared to be subsiding.

Air strikes on Wednesday night on what it called “terrorist targets” in the Majdel Silim area were of a kind which have become routine in its battle against Hizbollah, which aims to expel it from its self-declared security zone in south Lebanon.

Although the Israeli army once again ordered the citizens of Kiryat Shmona into their shelters, Hizbollah appeared reluctant to use its rockets.

Israel believes Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, with influence on Hizbollah, is using the guerrillas to needle concessions out of it in its stalled talks with Syria.

“I appeal to Syria to prove its intentions of peace. When it wants to, it can restrain the organisation,” Levy told diplomats after a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet on Wednesday.

Despite the rhetoric, there were hopes that the lack of Hizbollah retaliation in the form of Katyusha attacks meant Syria had not given up hope of peace with Israel.

While Israel says it is no longer following a 1996 agreement not to launch attacks on or from civilian areas because of Hizbollah breaches, Hizbollah says it is still complying.

The United States last year managed to bring the countries back to the negotiating table after 45 months, only for the talks to be suspended when Israel refused to guarantee at the outset that it would return all the occupied Golan Heights.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said her middle-east envoy Dennis Ross would go to the region next week, and that Israel’s peace moves with Syria and the Palestinians could survive the violence.

“What the Israelis have done is to send a very strong signal about the fact that they don’t want this escalating,” she said.

The latest cycle of violence was triggered by Hizbollah’s killing of five Israeli soldiers in the two weeks. Israel for its part wounded 15 people in bombing the the power plants.

Hizbollah hit back by killing another Israeli soldier and a pro-Israeli militiaman.

Early Wednesday morning, four Lebanese civilians were wounded in air attacks on suspected Hizbollah bases in the southern city of Tyre and two villages southeast of Nabatiyeh.