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Israel wants Lebanese

govt to curb

Hizbollah

JERUSALEM: Israel has stepped up attacks on south Lebanon, hoping the thousands of people fleeing their homes will pressure the Lebanese government to curb Islamic guerrillas.

Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids on Friday that continued into the night in retaliation for Katyusha rocket attacks by Hizbollah guerrillas on the Jewish state's northern border.

The campaign, which a top Israeli army officer said Israel had dubbed "Operation Grapes of Wrath," followed Israeli warnings to residents of towns and villages in south Lebanon to leave their homes or face attacks.

"The Lebanese government is responsible for this and for all the suffering that will be caused," said Foreign Minister Ehud Barak, who reported that 100,000 Lebanese had already fled north.

"The Lebanese government will have to find solutions...It will either have to disarm Hizbollah or find another way to disable it," he told Israel Television on Friday.

Barak said negotiations with the Lebanese government were out of the question as long as the guerrillas continued firing Katyushas on Israel.

The casualty toll as a result of the raids was not immediately clear. Lebanese security sourcs said at least eight civlians were killed and eight wounded by Israeli shelling in the area.

"Unless the Lebanon government will be in a position to take charge of the situation...the cost of the lack of order will be paid alas by the people of Lebanon," Prime Minister Shimon Peres told reporters.

Asked how long Israel would be acting in Lebanon, Peres said: "As long as it is necessary. I'm not going to predict."

Thousands of residents on Israel's side of the border also fled their homes after Katyusha rocket attacks.

Residents of Kiryat Shmona said at least half of the town's 22,300 residents had fled to other parts of Israel.

The army said between 30 and 40 Katyushas had slammed into Israel in recent days. One of the rockets landed on a moving car, severely wounding a woman driver. Others have damaged homes in northern Israel.

Israeli helicopters attacked targets in Beirut for the second time in two days on Friday and had a first brush with Syrian troops, who number 30,000 in Lebanon.

The army said its aircraft were targeting Hizbollah but witnesses said they hit a Syrian anti-aircraft position. Damascus said one of its soldiers was killed in the raid.

"As far as we know we hit two anti-aircraft machine guns north of Beirut airport, which were probably...manned by Syrian troops," Major-General Moshe Yaalon, commander of military intelligence, told reporters in Tel Aviv.

Asked if Israel was concerned Syria would get involved in the fighting in Lebanon as a result of the incident, he said:

"No, I don't think there is a threat of Syrian involvement so far."

Curbing Hizbollah

would mean civil war

BEIRUT: Meanwhile Lebanon's billionaire Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri said the United States and Israel were asking the impossible by demanding that his government stop Hizbollah guerrillas attacking Israel.

The demand amounted to calling for a new civil war in Lebanon, which would be worse than the Israeli blitz the country was now experiencing, he said.

Hariri told a news conference late on Friday he had discussed with US officials Israel's two-day blitz launched in reprisal for attacks by Hizbollah (Party of God) guerrillas on Israeli troops in south Lebanon and rocket attacks on towns in north Israel.

US Presses Syria, Iran

WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday urged Syria and Iran to persuade Hizbollah to stop a barrage of new attacks on Israel and defended the Jewish state's retaliatory strikes, saying Islamic radicals must feel the "consequences" of their acts.

"We believe that those who have influence over Hizbollah should use that influence" to end the violence, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters, citing Syria and Iran specifically.-Reuter