Israel, Lebanon trade fire

CAIRO, MAY 5. The Lebanese capital Beirut along with several other areas in the north and east of the country plunged into darkness today after Israeli fighter planes blasted power stations while Hezbollah rebels retaliated by firing seven Katyusha rockets which landed in northern Israel.

The Hezbollah rebels said the attacks this morning were a warning to Israel not to persist in attacking Lebanon. The bombing of power stations would result in power rationing as newly installed transformers were damaged, an official said.

Israel said its strikes, which came hours after the Hezbollah rebels fired rockets into northern Israel yesterday, were in retaliation to the attacks which killed an Israeli soldier and wounded 26 people.

A military statement issued in Jerusalem today said the Israeli air force hit power transformer stations near Beirut in the central part of the country, Tripoli in the north and a `terroist's target' in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa valley.

The attack also left a deep crater on the Beirut- Damascus highway, severing the main traffic artery between the Lebanese and Syrian capitals.

At least three air-to-surface missile hits made people dash to bomb shelters this morning in a northern Beirut suburb. Two more explosions rocked the area 15 minutes after the first attack on a power station, one of two major stations feeding Beirut electricity. Two more missiles were fired an hour after the initial strike.

Israeli warplanes also attacked near the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city, targeting the power plant in nearby Baddawi. The air raid was also conducted southeast of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon's Bakes valley.

Reports from Beirut said that the Hezbollah rebels fired seven Katyushas this morning from the coastal area of Mansouri in southern Lebanon which landed inside northern Israel.

The guerillas said the cross-border strikes were to avenge the deaths of two Lebanese civilians - an 82-year-old woman and her 40-year-old daughter - killed by Israeli artillery fire. With the overnight escalation of tension between Lebanon and Israel, hopes of an early peace in the region dimmed.

The Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, Mr. Ephraim Snefu, today declared that Israel would foremost defend its citizens.

The country has promised to unilaterally withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon in July this year where it mans a buffer zone occupying 18 per cent of Labanese land apparently to protect its northern borders.

While the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Selim al-Hoss, condemned the raids as `barbaric', the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Barak, visiting an Israeli border town hit by the heavy barrage of rockets, said Israel would retaliate.

U.S. urges restraint

The U.S. today condemned attacks on civilian targets in both the countries and said it was extremely important for the two sides to halt the escalation in the fighting.

The U.S. Ambassador, Mr. David Satterfield, said he had delivered separate messages from the Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, to Mr. Hoss after the attacks and counter-attacks.

- PTI, Reuters

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