Israeli helicopter gunships and tanks fired on Hezbollah guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon yesterday, killing one guerrilla, Lebanese officials reported.
A Hezbollah spokesman confirmed the death of the guerrilla.
Witnesses in southern Lebanon said two Israeli helicopters fired two rockets at the guerrilla positions near the border village of Aita Shaab, some 15km southeast of the coastal city of Tyre.
The renewed fighting came amid heightened tension between Israel and Hezbollah along the border in southern Lebanon that followed a Beirut bombing on Monday that killed a veteran Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah blamed Israel for the assassination.
The security officials said an Israeli tank opened fire on a Hezbollah position near Aita el-Shaab, killing a Hezbollah guerrilla.
The guerrillas returned fire at Israeli positions across the border. Israeli helicopter gunships later scrambled into the air, firing missiles at the source of fire, the officials said.
Earlier, Israeli missiles twice hit a Gaza militants' safe house, wounding five, a spokesman for a Palestinian group said, the first Israeli air strikes there since internal turmoil broke out over the weekend.
In a related development, Is-rael's moderate Labor Party on Monday demanded legislation to back up Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan as part of its price for shoring up his shaky government.
The two air strikes, one on Monday afternoon and the second after midnight, targeted the same house in the Shati refugee camp next to Gaza City, said witnesses and a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committee.
The spokesman, Abu Abir, said the house was used by Abed Quka, the group's leader in northern Gaza. He was wounded in the first attack.
In other violence on Monday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian in a refugee camp next to the West Bank city of Nablus at nightfall. Palestinians said he was throwing rocks at soldiers. The Israeli military said he was holding a rifle.
The air strike came as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat moved to defuse three days of tension and violence over his appointment of a relative, Moussa Arafat, as head of security in Gaza.
On Monday, Arafat reinstated the officer his relative replaced -- Abdel Razek al-Majaide -- but retained Moussa Arafat in a powerful position, satisfying some of his critics but infuriating others.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said on Monday he was intent on resigning but made no move to leave office.
He told reporters that in a phone call to Arafat, he said, ``It is time to reactivate all our security branches based on the correct principles. It is now time to appoint the right man to the right position.''
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erakat said Arafat and other Palestinian leaders would meet in an emergency session yesterday to decide Qureia's fate.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS