Hezbollah guerrillas attack Israeli troops on northern border
By Associated Press  November 21, 2005
 
 
Hezbollah guerrillas fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in a disputed border area Monday, triggering an Israeli air strike and artillery shelling of suspected guerrilla hideouts, the first clash between the two sides in five months.

The guerrillas fired on five Israeli positions in the Chebaa Farms, an area where the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet, Hezbollah's Al-Manar television reported. An official in the guerrilla group said its fighters subjected the positions to "intense shelling."

In retaliation, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at suspected guerrilla hideouts about 500 meters (yards) from the Lebanese-Israeli border, Lebanese security officials in south Lebanon said.

Israeli artillery shelled positions in mountainous areas and valleys near the Chebaa Farms, security officials in south Lebanon said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The Israeli army confirmed that several missiles or mortars were fired from Lebanon into the Chebaa Farms. It did not confirm the retaliation.

There was no word on casualties and what triggered the fighting.

Chebaa Farms has become the focus of Hezbollah attacks on Israeli forces since the Jewish state withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah attacks the enclave periodically, the last time was in June, when an Israeli soldier and a Hezbollah guerrilla were killed.

Lebanon and Syria say Chebaa Farms is Lebanese territory, but U.N. cartographers who surveyed the border after the Israeli withdrawal said it belongs to that part of Syria which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The Iranian-and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, which led a guerrilla war against Israel's 18-year occupation of part of southern Lebanon, is under international pressure to disarm. A U.N. Security Council resolution passed last year demanded that all militias in Lebanon give up their weapons.

The guerrilla group has refused, and has so far been supported by the Lebanese government, which claims Hezbollah is not a militia but a movement resisting Israeli occupation.

The Lebanese government has rejected repeated U.N. and U.S. demands to deploy the army along the country's southern border, saying it will not serve as an Israeli protection force. This has enabled Hezbollah to control security in the border area.
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