TYRE, 17 November 2003 — Israeli jets violated Lebanese airspace yesterday, causing sonic booms over the south of the country, as well as close to the Syrian border in the north and east, police said.
Four Israeli fighter-bombers broke the sound barrier, repeatedly flying at low altitude over southern Lebanon, taking in the coastal towns of Sidon and Tyre, they said.
Two Israeli planes also broke the sound barrier flying at medium altitude over the eastern town of Baalbeck, before cruising over Hermel and Akkar in the east and north, close to the Syrian border, police said.
Hezbollah fighters opened fire on the Israeli warplanes, Lebanese police said.
On Thursday, Israeli bombers broke the sound barrier over Sidon, without provoking retaliation from Hezbollah anti-aircraft batteries or Lebanese soldiers. Israeli planes violate Lebanese airspace almost daily, drawing repeated condemnation from the United Nations.
Tensions have flared on the border since Oct. 5, when Israel launched its first air strike in 30 years on Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, which has accused Israel of violating Lebanese airspace, has threatened Israel with “costly” reprisals, if its aircraft continue their almost daily incursions into Lebanese airspace. Hezbollah and another Palestinian group Hamas dismissed yesterday recent military exercises carried out by Israel on its borders with Lebanon and Syria as a “media” ploy.
Israeli exercises “are media ploy and not important,” charged Hezbollah number two, Sheikh Naim Qassem, during a speech in Beirut to mark 33 years since late Syrian President Hafez Assad swept to power in Damascus.
“If they are readying real preparations, then we will stand firm,” he vowed. The Israeli Army said Thursday that it had this week started large-scale exercises near the Jewish state’s border with Lebanon and the cease-fire line with Syria, ahead of a possible “military escalation on the northern front”. An Israeli military spokesman said the routine exercise was a warning to Syria and Hezbollah.
Hamas political leader, Khaled Mashaal, added that Israel, bogged down by continuing violence in the Palestinian territories, was therefore incapable of posing a threat to Syria and Lebanon.
“Israel needs 20,000 reservists to invade Gaza, do you think they are capable of waging a war of attrition with Syria and Lebanon?”
Mashaal said Damascus had “absorbed” Israel’s air strike on Syria, launched on Oct. 5 “by increasing its sponsorship of the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance,” he said.
