AITA EL-SHAAB, Lebanon, 21 July 2004 — Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters killed two Israeli soldiers and lost one of their own in border clashes yesterday, a day after the group accused Israel of killing a top Hezbollah member.
Israel and Hezbollah traded blame over who precipitated the most serious fighting in months along the Lebanese-Israeli border. Lebanon’s government complained to the UN Security Council about the Israeli attacks.
The Israeli Army said two soldiers died in the fighting and that helicopters gunships attacked Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah confirmed one of its fighters was killed.
Unlike most of the previous clashes, yesterday’s incidents were far from the disputed Shebaa Farms that witness frequent exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah. The last major trouble in Shebaa on May 7 killed an Israeli soldier.
Witnesses in southern Lebanon said two Israeli helicopters fired two rockets at Hezbollah positions near the border village of Aita El-Shaab, some 15 km southeast of the coastal city of Tyre. Later in the day, an Israeli helicopter staged a raid in the same area, security officers said.
The Hezbollah fighter was killed in Israeli tank fire on the village, the security officers said.
The fighters returned fire at Israeli positions across the border. Israeli helicopter gunships later scrambled into the air, firing missiles at the source of fire, the officers said.
The Israeli fire started a bush blaze and civil defense members as well as villagers extinguished the flames, witnesses said.
Israeli helicopters attacked another observation post at nearby Ramia an hour later, but there were no casualties or damage, a Hezbollah statement said.
The clashes later died down.
In the evening, Lebanese Army anti-aircraft batteries opened fire in the direction of Israeli warplanes that had broken the sound barrier at low altitude twice over the capital Beirut. The fighter-bombers caused supersonic booms at around 7.10 p.m., provoking panic on the streets of the capital.
“It is the first such supersonic bang (over Beirut) in years, probably since the Israeli withdrawal” from southern Lebanon in 2000 after 22 years of occupation, a senior Lebanese security source said.
Lebanon complained to the UN Security Council, saying Israel violated Lebanese airspace, killed a Lebanese fighter and caused material damage, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Including yesterday’s deaths, 13 Israeli soldiers have been killed in cross-border confrontations since the Israeli pullout.
On Monday, a bomb in Beirut killed senior Hezbollah member Ghalib Awali. Hezbollah accused Israel, which assassinated Hezbollah leader Abbas Al-Mussawi in 1992, of carrying out the attack.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah promised to cut off the hands of Israeli agents for the assassination. Israel declined comment.
Lebanon’s interior minister, Elias Murr, said in a statement yesterday that the preliminary investigation into Awali’s killing has revealed “the existence of clear Israeli fingerprints in the planning and execution” of the attack.
Hezbollah played a key role in forcing Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon. The group’s fighters took up positions on the border after the Israeli withdrawal and fighting has flared sporadically since then. Hezbollah killed an Israeli soldier and wounded five others in May in fighting in the Shebaa Farms, an area which Lebanon and Syria say is Lebanese territory. The United Nations says it is Israeli-occupied Syrian land.
Yesterday’s hostilities occurred well away from that area, closer to the Mediterranean coast.
