World

Civilians Rocketed In Mideast

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 23, 1998 / 1:14 AM EST / CBS

Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into northern Israel on Wednesday, a day after Israeli planes accidentally killed a woman and six of her children in a raid on suspected guerrilla targets.

Sixteen people in Israel were wounded, most of them slightly, in several volleys fired by pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) fighters in an attack the Shi'ite Moslem group said answered violence with violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet to discuss the rocket attacks, which reignited the debate in Israel over its occupation of a nine-mile deep security zone in south Lebanon.

"I laid on my son...until the explosions stopped. Then I got up and I was shocked," northern resident Molly Nizri told Israel Army radio. "I saw my house smashed and strewn with glass."

Most residents of Kiryat Shemona and other northern communities spent the night in bomb shelters, fearing a reprisal for the Israeli raid.

Lebanese security sources said as many as 60 rockets were fired. One smashed a hole in the side of an apartment building.

"I couldn't sleep all night. I woke up in the morning happy that nothing happened and then we heard a big boom," said a resident of the building.

The attack came a day after Israeli warplanes killed a woman and six of her seven children in a raid on suspected Hizbollah positions near Lebanon's eastern border with Syria.

Israel called the killings an accident and expressed sorrow. Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai sent messages to Lebanon and Syria saying Israel did not want events to escalate.

The Israeli army said on Wednesday it was returning fire. A Lebanese security source said Israeli shells rained down on southern Lebanon, damaging a building under construction but causing no casualties.

Israel has controlled parts of south Lebanon since 1978 and set up its current occupation zone in 1985, saying it needed to protect its northern border from potential guerrilla attacks.

"There's no need to stay...in a security zone that isn't ours, which hasn't succeeded in preventing Katyushas or other problems or the killing of soldiers," said dovish Israeli opposition Labor party legislator Yossi Beilin.

The Israeli government has said it will withdraw from the zone if the Lebanese government guarantees security. Lebanon and Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, say Israel must pull out without conditions.

However, peace moves appeared to be on hold in the region while Israel begins an election campaign that could redraw the political map in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under fire from the ideological left and right, lost campaign support from two key former allies Wednesday, as the race to become Israel's next prime minister continued to heat up.

Settler leaders Yisrael Harel and Yoel Bin-Nun said they would support right-wing alternatives to Netanyahu aid polls showing the U.S.-educated leader losing a head-on race against either one of two centrist former army chiefs eyeing the top job.

Netanyahu was forced on Monday to throw his suppport behind elections when it became clear that he was in danger of being ousted by a no-confidence vote.

His fragile 61-59 parliament majority was torn apart by right-wing opposition to land-for-security deals and an inability to court moderate and dovish legislators into supporting his peace positions.

A series of conditions Netanyahu gave Palestinians for the continuation of the peace process did not go far enough for hardline members of his governing coalition, who were angered by Israel's latest withdrawal from West Bank land. Opposition Knesset members, meanwhile, were angered by what they saw as an obstacle to the peace process and removed conditional support they had given Netanyahu to pursue peace deals.

In a move likely to put further strain on the peace process, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority on Wednesday freed the spiritual leader of the militant Islamic organization Hamas.

The Palestinian Authority had arrested Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a sweep of militants coinciding with the latest peace accord signed in Wye, Maryland in October.

Reining in Islamic militants, who have killed scores of Israelis in suicide attacks since Israel-PLO peace talks began in 1993, has been one of Israel's key demands in negotiations with the Palestinians.

Tuesday's casualties in Lebanon raised to 28 the number of civilians killed in fighting this year between Israel and guerrilla groups trying to oust Israel and its South Lebanon Army militia allies from southern Lebanon.

Hizbollah said it fired the Katyushas against Israel in response to the civilian deaths on Tuesday.

"Once again, the resistance has fulfilled its promise to protect our territory and our civilians," the group said in a statement. "Violence must be answered back by violence. Their blood must be spilled for ours."

Thirty-seven guerrillas, mostly from Hizbollah, and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon this year.