Israelis on Lebanon border fear air raid backlash

Barak greets residents in a bomb shelter

Missiles darken Beirut, hopes for Mideast peace

February 8, 2000
Web posted at: 9:34 a.m. EST (1434 GMT)

In this story: Thousands shelter from feared rocket attacks Israel warns against reprisals Strikes raise doubts about peace process U.S. State Department calls for restraint RELATED STORIES, SITES

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- A wave of Israeli air strikes, meant as a message to Hezbollah, left tens of thousands in Israel braced Tuesday for a deadly reply from the Islamic guerrilla group.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak, under heavy public pressure to get tough after the recent killings by Hezbollah of five Israeli soldiers, at midnight Monday unleashed Israel's heaviest air raids on Lebanon in eight months.

VIDEO In Lebanon, CNN's Brent Sadler shows the results of attacks from Israel. (February 8) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD Mideast peace

An Israeli Army spokesman said the raids were meant as a message to Hezbollah and to the Lebanese government to "stop the escalation and to live in a co-existence as neighbors in the Middle East."

The strikes, which Lebanon said injured at least 18 civilians, violated a 1996 agreement by both sides to avoid civilian targets. Hezbollah issued a statement Tuesday, saying the guerrillas "reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time -- which could come very soon."

Thousands shelter from feared rocket attacks

The group also said the air offensive will not protect Israeli ground forces against continued Hezbollah attacks in the south. It did not give an account of any losses from an Israeli air strike on a Hezbollah base.

Mideast analysts said the raids, which knocked out power to large areas of Beirut and Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon, also risked setting back efforts to restart stalled land-for-peace negotiations with Lebanon's ally Syria.

The air strikes forced tens of thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters along the Lebanese border Tuesday. Many feared retaliatory rocket attacks would be launched by Hezbollah guerrillas.

View  from Israeli warplane hitting a Lebanese power plant

Israel warns against reprisals

An Israeli government spokesman said the air raids are over -- for now, "As far as we are concerned, the bombing can stop today and indeed it's stopped," Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said.

But Israel warned that any retaliation by Hezbollah would prompt still more severe military action.

"Clearly if Katyushas (rockets) are fired, it cannot go unanswered," Maj. Gen. Giora Island, chief of the Israeli army's Operations Division, said Tuesday. "An intentional terrorist attack on civilians in northern Israel will oblige us to take additional action which will be more severe than what we did during the night."

He said the army had ordered residents of northern Israel, who spent the night in bomb shelters, to remain underground until further notice.

Island said planes targeted three power stations in Lebanon and a headquarters building of the pro-Iranian Shi'ite Moslem group in the town of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in the eastern Bekaa valley.

At Israeli border towns, the army ordered residents to spend the night in bomb shelters

Strikes raise doubts about peace process

The air offensive also cast a shadow over prospects for a peace pact between Israel and Syria. Many felt Tuesday the window of opportunity for such an agreement is closing.

"It is becoming more and more smaller and narrow, but we still believe in peace," said former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. "We still hope that the Israeli people and the Israeli leadership and the United States in particular will play its role to push forward the peace process."

Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Richard Murphy said hopes for peace might be improved if Syria can be a calming influence on militant Hezbollah members.

"My own guess would be that Syria is restraining Hezbollah from retaliating," he said.

U.S. State Department calls for restraint

The latest fighting also increases pressure for Israel's speedy withdrawal from southern Lebanon -- where in 1985 it established a buffer zone to protect nearby northern Israeli towns from guerrilla attacks. Hezbollah has been fighting to drive the Israelis out ever since.

Barak had said Israel would pull out of the occupied territory by July.

"There is no point in waiting until July, unless someone thinks that by then we can achieve an agreement (with Syria)," said Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Barak's tourism minister and one of his lead negotiators with Syria.

After Tuesday's raids, a U.S. State Department spokesman issued a statement calling for restraint on all sides.

"We are deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in southern Lebanon. We call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to calm this dangerous situation," the spokesman said.

Beirut Bureau Chief Brent Sadler, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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February 1, 2000
Israel: No talks with Syria unless guerrillas curbed
January 31, 2000
Despite postponement of talks, Albright upbeat on Israel-Syria dialogue
January 18, 2000
Barak receives cool homecoming after peace talks with Syria
January 11, 2000

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Syrian Arab Republic Ministry of Information
Office of the Israeli prime minister
Lebanon's Presidential Palace
CIA World Factbook: Israel
CIA World Factbook: Syria
CIA World Factbook: Lebanon

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