KFAR SHOUBA, Lebanon, 28 October 2003 — Lebanese Hezbollah men and Israel traded fire in a disputed border area yesterday in the latest sign of rising tension between Syria and the Jewish state.
Witnesses and security sources said Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, attacked Israeli posts in the Shebaa Farms area.
The attack drew at least five Israeli airstrikes and heavy shelling on the edges of several Lebanese border villages.
Regional tensions have flared since Israel struck what it said was a training camp for Palestinian militants in Syria on Oct. 5 in the deepest attack on its neighbor in 30 years. A day later an Israeli soldier and a Lebanese boy were killed in flare-ups on the Lebanese border.
Yesterday’s Hezbollah attack came after Syria, which has broad sway in Lebanon, hinted it would retaliate over any Israeli military strike against it by attacking Jewish settlements on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The clashes also coincided with a meeting between Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Syrian Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Hasan Turkmani, who earlier this month placed the Syrian armed forces on high alert against any fresh Israeli attack.
Hezbollah said on its Al-Manar television that it fired rockets and shells at Israeli posts in the Shebaa Farms area near the border between Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights. “In response to the Israeli air raids on liberated Lebanese areas, the Islamic resistance attacked ... the Israel enemy position in Abbassiyeh with the appropriate weapons achieving direct hits,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Israeli security sources said rocket fire hit at least one outpost and struck the outskirts of several others in the area Israel calls Har Dov. One Israeli soldier was slightly hurt. They said two rockets were also fired at an Israeli military outpost near the Israeli town of Rajah, west of Shebaa Farms.
The Israeli Army said its warplanes attacked sources of Hezbollah fire as well as targets in Lebanon it said belonged to Hezbollah. The Shiite group fired anti-aircraft rounds at those planes, Lebanese security sources said.
Hezbollah last attacked Israeli posts in Shebaa Farms in August in apparent response to the killing of one of its members in a car bomb — an attack it blamed on the Jewish state.
Before that, the resistance group whose attacks helped end Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, had not launched an attack in the Shebaa Farms for months.
The attack yesterday came hours after Israel handed over to Lebanon a Lebanese prisoner arrested on a boat carrying weapons off the coast of northern Israel in 2001.
It was unclear if that was linked to talks between Hezbollah and Israel over the release of 15 Lebanese and hundreds of other Arab prisoners in Israel for three Israeli soldiers presumed dead and an Israeli businessman held by the group.
