CNN WORLD News

Israel orders more Lebanese villagers to flee

smoke tank

Hezbollah suicide bombers prepare to attack

April 15, 1996
Web posted at: 11:15 a.m. EDT (1515 GMT)

From Correspondents Brent Sadler, Siobhan Darrow and Jerrold Kessel

(CNN) -- As the fifth day of fighting raged in southern Lebanon Monday between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel ordered inhabitants of seven more villages to leave their homes. About 400,000 people already have left the area.

"When they stop firing rockets, we will stop," said Yossi Beilin, a senior member of the Israeli cabinet. Also Monday, President Clinton, en route to Japan, said he has directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher to talk to leaders on both sides to try to resolve the conflict. Christopher has called Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa in the first of a series of phone calls.

On Sunday, Hezbollah threatened to press dozens of suicide bombers into service to avenge the Israeli attacks. Hezbollah's al-Manar television showed about 70 camouflage- clad volunteers at a swearing-in ceremony for suicide bombers.

As they have since last Thursday, (442K QuickTime movie) Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded Hezbollah strongholds Monday, including the southern suburbs of Beirut. Guerrillas seeking to end Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon fired more rockets on northern Israel.


Shimon Peres


"Too early to negotiate"

-- Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres

At least 28 people have been killed and more than 100 injured since the violence erupted last week following a Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel. Except for one Israeli soldier, all the dead were Lebanese civilians.

Lebanon Israeli attacks

In Paris, Lebanese Premier Rafik al-Hariri met with French President Jacques Chirac, who has pledged that his nation will do everything possible to help secure Lebanon's sovereignty and independence.

Hariri said Israeli air raids only boosted support for Hezbollah guerrillas and appealed for an immediate cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

But Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said he was not ready for negotiation. "It is too early to negotiate," Peres told reporters when asked for Israel's conditions for an end to the fighting.

The French foreign minister, dispatched to the Mideast to try a win a cease-fire, was due to meet Peres in Jerusalem Monday evening before traveling to Syria and Lebanon on Tuesday. The U.N. Security Council was to discuss the conflict at a meeting on Monday.

city smoke

Repeated volleys of machine-gun fire could be heard in Beirut Monday and Lebanese security sources said the army fired anti-aircraft guns at Israeli warplanes buzzing the capital. Beirut's southern suburbs were hit by Israeli rockets.

"Intense air activity"

To the south, CNN's Brent Sadler reported "intense air activity" over the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre.

"During the past couple of hours, we've heard many planes flying overhead and there were two air strikes on the city limits, but there have been no direct attacks on (Tyre) itself," Sadler reported live at 8 a.m. EDT (3 p.m. local time).(196K AIFF sound or 196K WAV sound)

kids

The battle zone in south Lebanon -- about 100 villages and towns, including Tyre -- was hurriedly evacuated over the past few days. The refugees, about 10 percent of Lebanon's population, fled in cars, trucks and on foot to safer areas in the north, as far as Beirut.

Some won't leave

But many Lebanese remain in and around Tyre, despite the fresh Israeli ultimatum to get out.

The villages in the latest evacuation order lie north of the Litani River which Israel set Sunday as the border of a new 19-mile-wide no-go zone in southern Lebanon.

Berri

Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier increased the fears of civilians, already coping with dwindling supplies of food, water and medicine. The first shipment of French aid, 40 tons of medical supplies and food, was flown into Beirut. Kuwait was sending blankets and tents.

Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri entered Tyre Monday in a show of defiance to the attacks.

"This is the peace that Peres has promised us," he told reporters. "What is taking place is not only a conspiracy against Hezbollah but also on the whole of Lebanon and is targeting the peace process." But Berri sidestepped questions about Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel.

'We're afraid'

injured woman

Hezbollah guerrillas, who had vowed to turn northern Israel into a "fiery hell," unleashed at least two more Katyusha rockets Monday in the area of Kiryat Shmonah, damaging a synagogue and injuring at least one woman.

With no letup in the cross-border attacks, many Israeli civilians who were prepared to stay in the war zone have decided to leave. Some of them are Russian immigrants who now find themselves on the move again.

"Of course, we're afraid," said one Russian-speaking woman, wiping tears from her eyes as she and her husband boarded a bus. "They're throwing Katyushas on us."

tank

There is a limit to what air strikes and artillery can accomplish. Eventually, Israel may have to consider sending in its ground forces if it really wants to knock out Hezbollah strongholds.

For years, Hezbollah has fought to push Israel from the southern Lebanon "security zone" Israel carved out in 1985 to prevent cross-border raids.

Hariri, who is touring friendly countries to seek help to end the conflict, told reporters in Paris that Israel and Hezbollah should revert to an unofficial 1993 agreement under which each side pledged to avoid hitting civilian targets.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related stories:


Feedback

Send us your comments.
Selected responses are posted daily.

[Imagemap]
| CONTENTS | SEARCH | CNN HOME PAGE | MAIN WORLD NEWS PAGE |

Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.