Israel warns Syria, Lebanon over border attacks

Israeli artillery fires towards Lebanon at the Israeli-Lebanese border from the Golan Heights on Friday after the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah fired weapons at Israeli army posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms area for the first time in seven months. The Israeli army maintained its occupation of the Shebaa Farms area when it pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000. The area was captured from Syria in 1967, but is now claimed by Lebanon with Syria's blessing. Photo: AFP

Israeli public radio said yesterday the government had lodged a complaint against the two countries at the United Nations after the first attack by Lebanon-based Islamic radicals in seven months.

The complaint warned that unless Damascus and Beirut use their influence to restrain the Hezbollah militia, Israel would be forced to take steps to protect its citizens, the radio said. It did not elaborate.

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Israeli ambassador Danny Gillerman lodged the protest with the UN Security Council, where Syria ironically holds the rotating chairmanship.

Israeli warplanes, helicopter gunships and artillery responded to the Hezbollah assault on the disputed Shebaa Farms region, formerly part of Syria, now occupied by Israel and claimed by Lebanon with Damascus's accord.

Although no casualties were reported, the Israeli army called the incident "very serious" and vowed in a statement to "act against those who are behind terrorism or support terrorist attacks" against the Jewish state.

The United States also warned Lebanon and Syria against backing new attacks, with State Department spokesman Philip Reeker saying Friday that "the time has come for them to end support for Hezbollah."

The Shiite Hezbollah said it had carried out its onslaught Friday in retaliation for the death of one of its militants in a Beirut car bomb blast last week that it blamed on Israeli agents.

But Israeli officials, who have long feared being caught in a two-front conflict, linked Friday's attack to the precarious ceasefire with Palestinian militants that took hold six weeks ago.

A senior Israeli official, who asked not to be named, said the assault was prompted by "the frustration felt by Hezbollah and possibly its foreign supporters" over the sharp decline in Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The eruption around the mountainous frontier area Friday was only part of the region's most turbulent day since militant Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad declared a three-month truce on June 29.

An Israeli raid on a suspected bomb factory in the northern West Bank town of Nablus left four Palestinians, including two Hamas militants, and an Israeli soldier dead.

Both sides have expressed fears the truce could unravel, giving way to a new spiral of bloodshed and dealing a crippling blow to a US-sponsored peace roadmap aimed at establishing a Palestinian state by 2005.

Hamas political leaders said after the bloody Nablus operation that they were still committed to a ceasefire but leaders of their military wing vowed vengeance.

Officials of the Palestinian Authority see the continued Israeli operations as an impediment to their efforts to keep Hamas and the other militant groups in line.

The Palestinian leadership late Friday called on the quartet which drew up the roadmap -- the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia -- to halt what it termed Israel's "aggressions" which were threatening the truce.

The Israelis, meanwhile, fear that the radicals are using the lull to regroup and rearm and are intent on curbing the Palestinians' capacity to mount any future attacks.

Israeli public television reported late Friday that the Israeli army had arrested 105 Palestinians since the Palestinians proclaimed their ceasefire.