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Heavy Fighting In
Gaza And Lebanon Border
GAZA CITY, April 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least 24 Palestinians were wounded when a fierce firefight erupted on Saturday following an Israeli army raid in Rafah on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian shops in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after the army bulldozed a Palestinian security position in the area, prompting a heavy exchange of fire between the army and Palestinians, witnesses said.
Medical sources told AFP that at least 24 people were injured, five of them seriously, by bullets and shrapnel during the incident, which saw several hundred people involved in the confrontation, dozens of them armed.
The army operation came only days after Israeli forces attacked the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip in its first major ground assault into Palestinian controlled territory since the current Intifada, or uprising, erupted almost seven months ago.
Israel, under hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has been launching "pre-emptive" and "retaliatory" (offensive) strikes for Palestinian retaliatory strikes on Jewish settlers and army posts, with the Gaza Strip the scene of most violence in recent days.
In Rafah, Israeli bulldozers destroyed 16 houses along with six shops and the security post, witnesses and security sources said, adding that residents, because of the continuous fighting in the region, had already abandoned the houses.
"The military presence in the area provokes people and escalates the confrontation," a Palestinian security source told AFP.
An army spokeswoman said Palestinians had opened fire on an army force in the region.
"A heavy exchange of fire is going on. Palestinians have thrown around five grenades at army forces," she told AFP.
Witnesses said Israeli tanks had withdrawn from the area but two combat helicopters were circling overhead.
Rafah has been a frequent flashpoint in the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which has left more than 470 people dead, mostly Palestinian, since it erupted in late September.
On the Lebanon-Israeli border, Israel bombed south Lebanon Saturday after an attack by Hezbollah in the disputed Shebaa Farms region, the first such raids since Sharon took office, sources on both sides said.
"Israeli air force combat planes today attacked Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon due to heavy fire from the targets in the direction of the Har Dov region inside Israeli territory. All our planes returned safely to their bases," the Israeli army said in a statement.
The army said it hit two targets, but did not give details on the raids, the first on south Lebanon since Sharon was sworn in as prime minister of the Jewish state on March 7th.
Israeli military sources also told AFP in Jerusalem that they were checking whether the Hezbollah attack had caused any injuries.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite Muslim group, said earlier in a statement that it blew up an Israeli tank at 2:30 pm (1130 GMT) in the "enemy-occupied" Shebaa Farms.
AFP correspondents near the scene said they heard a loud explosion and saw a cloud of smoke rise from the site of the attack.
Israeli warplanes then carried out raids on south Lebanon, with two fighter-bombers each firing two missiles within 20 minutes of each other on the Seddana hill near Shebaa village, Lebanese police said.
They added that Israeli artillery and helicopters also fired some 40 shells at villages facing the Shebaa Farms.
They said the 155-mm shells hit the area around the villages of Shebaa and Kfarshuba, as well as the woods of Jabbal Seddin and the Baarsail pond, in the western sector of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, spearheaded a war against Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended a year ago.
On October 7th, one of its units ambushed an Israeli patrol in the Shebaa Farms area and captured three Israeli soldiers.
Those soldiers, and a fourth Israeli captured later, were taken in a bid to arrange a swap for Lebanese and other prisoners held by Israel. They are all still being held captive.
The mountainous Shebaa Farms region, which lies at the intersection of Israel, Lebanon and Syria, has been held by the Jewish state since 1967 but is claimed by Beirut.
Israel says that because the area was captured from Syrian troops its fate is subject to any future peace deal with Damascus.
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