Israeli jets hit PFLP base in Lebanon

By ERIK SCHECHTER
On the northern front, Israeli jets swept in low to hit a hilltop base south of Beirut belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, early Wednesday morning. The BBC quoted a PFLP-GC spokesman as saying that two "guerillas" were wounded. The raid came on the heels of a rocket attack from Lebanon Tuesday night. Three Katyushas landed in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, while an unknown number of projectiles are believed to have fallen in open fields. One of the three rockets that landed in the town hit the staircase of an apartment building and destroyed the living room of a neighboring house. No one was injured by shrapnel or explosives, but three residents were treated for shock at a local clinic. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora denounced both the firing of the Katyusha rockets and the Israeli airstrike. The local tourism industry also took a hit as would-be holiday visitors to the North canceled their reservations to vacation homes. No group took responsibility for the rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona, but observers believe a radical Palestinian group, not Hizbullah, was responsible. Nor do they expect the northern region to heat up much more than it has already. Hizbullah has nearly 10,000 rockets at its disposal, but Tuesday night's attack does not bear the hallmark of the radical Shi'ite militia, said Eyal Zisser, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. "Hizbullah is very careful to attack military targets or the Shebaa Farms," said Zisser. Furthermore, while the Palestinians have an interest in opening another front against Israel, Hizbullah has restrained freelance attacks in order to maintain a monopoly on violence in southern Lebanon. "I don't want to say that the attack is a one-time thing," said Lt.-Col. (res.) Moshe Mazuz, a terrorism expert with the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, "but if it happens again, it'll be at a low level." OC Northern Command Maj.- Gen. Udi Adam issued a warning on TV Channel 2 that Israel views Lebanon solely responsible for terror groups operating in its territory. "Syria has left. There have been UN resolutions [calling on Lebanon to disarm its militias]. There's no need to try to find responsibility elsewhere," Adam said.