Israeli air strikes pounded Lebanese border towns as fierce clashes erupted between Hizbullah and Israeli forces. The reigniting of border violence occurred as Lebanon approaches crucial parliamentary polls and comes just a day after a rocket was fired from South Lebanon into a northern Israeli town, damaging a building but causing no casualties. Eyewitnesses on the border and Lebanese security sources said Israeli gunfire had reached as far west as the usually tranquil towns of Khiam and Rmeish, some distance from the disputed Shebaa Farms. Security sources said Israeli planes targeted a Hizbullah base in Rmeish as other aircraft launched raids on the western outskirts of Kfar Shouba.Conflicting reports emerged from both sides, as each claimed the other had begun the attacks. Hizbullah said it had shelled an Israeli post inside the Shebaa Farms, near the border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in response to an Israeli attack. The group said: "In response to the Israeli assault that targeted the border town of Kfar Shouba and struck civilian houses, the Islamic Resistance attacked the Israeli enemy position in Rweissat al-Aalam with the appropriate arms and struck it directly."
At the height of the clashes, Hizbullah issued a statement warning "the Zionist enemy that any attacks against civilians would be countered in kind." An Israeli military spokesperson said nine explosions occurred near Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms area. The spokesperson said Israeli tanks, artillery and warplanes retaliated, destroying four Hizbullah positions. A Lebanese police report said Israeli gunners began the clashes with heavy machinegun fire on the village of Kfar Shouba in the early afternoon, damaging a house but causing no casualties. Israel denied the Kfar Shouba shooting. According to Hizbullah MP Nazih Mansour, who was speaking to The Daily Star from the south, no civilian or Hizbullah casualties had been reported by the time the frontier had calmed down at 6:30 p.m.
| "Y'see, we're a resistance group, an' them Zionists keep pickin' on us, so we shouldn't have to give up our shootin' irons!" |