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Israeli jets attack south Lebanese village

TYRE (Lebanon): Israeli warplanes attacked suspected guerrilla positions north of the western sector of Israel's occupation zone in south Lebanon on Friday, a security source said.

The source said that two planes had fired four rockets at the outskirts of Majdel Zoun village. There were no immidiate reports of casualties.

He said the raid had been accompanied by an exchange of fire between guerrillas and Israeli positions in the area, which was also subjected to heavy shelling from inside the occupation zone.

The attack was the first since a speech by Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy on Wednesday in which he told parliament the soil of Lebanon would burn if Hizbollah guerrillas fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona and other northern Israeli settlements.

Iranian-backed Hizbollah group are waging a war of attrition to oust Israeli troops from the occupation zone that Israel set up in 1985, saying it needed to prevent cross-border attacks.

Syria hails French support

DAMASCUS: Syria on Thursday hailed French support for a multinational committee set up in 1996 to monitor a ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Lebanese guerrillas, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

He said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara made the remarks during talks with Laurent Raban, head of the French delegation to the committee that also groups the United States, Lebanon and Israel.

"Shara expressed appreciation over the French condemnation of the Israeli aggressions against Lebanon and France's interest in restoring work of the committee without any amendments to its rules," one official said.

Israel has launched a series of attacks against Lebanon this month including raids on the country's infrastructure and civilians in retaliation for the killing of seven Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon by Hizbollah guerrillas.

Israel said it would not abide by the rules of the so-called April Understanding agreement, banning attacks on civilians, if its soldiers in Lebanon were subjected to guerrilla attacks and boycotted a meeting of the committee last week.

Syrian officials said that Shara had discussed the Lebanon developments and Arab-Israeli peace talks with Miguel Angel Monatinos, the European Union's envoy to the Middle East.

Syria's peace talks with Israel, which resumed in December after a 45-month break, lapsed again last month after both sides failed to agree on which issues should be discussed first.-Reuters