Israeli jets yesterday bombed a variety of targets in Lebanon in retaliation for Tuesday's Katyusha rocket attack by Iranian-backed Hizbullah guerrillas on settlements in northern Israel. The attack came in spite of public statements by Israeli leaders that they wished to prevent an escalation of violence.While the jets fired missiles at Hizbullah bases in the Bekaa Valley, they also targeted economic installations, knocking out an electricity pylon near the southern port city of Sidon. Several civilians were injured in the assault.The punitive raid on Lebanese civilian infrastructure is the first since Israel launched its massive aerial and artillery bombardment of Lebanon in April last year, and is part of an Israeli policy aimed at pressuring Beirut into curbing Hizbullah attacks.In spite of the assault, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr David Levy, said Israel was "not interested in making the situation worse". But the policy of hitting infrastructure targets was criticised by Mr Yossi Beilin, a senior member of the opposition Labour Party, who termed it "unnecessary" and "mistaken". Another missile, fired close to an artillery battery of the Lebanese army, Israeli officials said, was a warning to the Lebanese army, which joined forces with Hizbullah on Monday in a battle with Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia.This latest tit-for-tat round of the seemingly interminable conflict in south Lebanon began when SLA soldiers shelled Sidon on Monday - killing seven civilians - in retaliation for a Hizbullah roadside bomb which earlier killed two children of an SLA commander, himself killed in a Hizbullah attack four years ago.
Hizbullah's rocket attack on Tuesday came in response to the shelling. Monday's shelling was the bloodiest attack on the Sidon area since Israeli forces mounted a 17day offensive last year dubbed "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in which about 200 Lebanese civilians were killed in the south.While the US was working furiously behind the scenes to restrain all the parties involved, there were reports yesterday that the Minister of National Infrastructure, Mr Ariel Sharon, had demanded a much more wide-ranging response by the army, but that his suggestions had been moderated by the Defence Minister, Gen Yitzhak Mordechai, and Mr Levy.Asked about the disagreement, Mr Levy would only say that the government was united in its decisions regarding Lebanon.Israeli residents in the north stuck close to air-raid shelters yesterday, bracing themselves for another possible strike by Hizbullah guerrillas.Peter Hirschberg is a senior writer at the Jerusalem ReportAdditional reporting: AFP