Artillery

The Israeli army used phosphorus artillery shells against Hezbollah guerrilla targets during their war in Lebanon this summer, an Israeli Cabinet minister said, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time. Israel said the weapons, which cause severe chemical burns, were used solely against military targets.

Palestinian villagers said the shelling came from the direction of the Israeli border, less than a mile away, scattering flaming objects in their midst and burning down 20 homes and the local United Nations-run school. "One landed in my kitchen and caused a fire," said Zohair Mohammed abu Rejila, 35. "I went to put it out, but another one landed on Mayar, my baby daughter. It was like a block of fire, a piece of plastic on fire.

Walter T. Kerwin Jr., 91, a retired four-star general who was the Army's second-highest-ranking officer in the mid-1970s and an architect of the all-volunteer Army, died July 11 of respiratory failure at a nursing facility in Alexandria, Va. In the early 1970s, during the Vietnam War, the military draft was deeply unpopular and desertions were common. In 1971, the Army's desertion rate of 62.6 per 1,000 troops nearly equaled its all-time high of 63 per 1,000 in 1944. Social problems, including drug abuse and racial strife, were evident throughout the military.

Government artillery and air raids in Sri Lanka's northern war zone killed at least 38 civilians and wounded 140, the area's top health official said. India offered to help evacuate tens of thousands of noncombatants. Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah said the dead included 13 members of one extended family who were killed in their sleep when artillery shells exploded on their home. The strike was in a village in a government-designated "safe zone" in the strip of territory held by Tamil Tiger rebels.

Even as firefights between Marines and Iraqi paramilitary units erupted sporadically, Marine officers and enlisted personnel fanned out across the sprawling city to investigate cases of civilians hurt or killed by Marine gunfire or artillery. "Every one of these cases is tragic," Capt. Joe Plenzler said. One of the cases being investigated involved three male Iraqis shot to death when Marines fired on their Toyota after the driver failed to obey commands to stop and ignored warning shots Wednesday night.

Bomb experts Tuesday exploded three artillery shells found in a ravine at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory last week--munitions that company officials described as small and innocuous. "There were no real surprises," Rocketdyne spokesman Dan Beck said after the detonations. "Two seemed to have some sort of high explosive in them. The third, the biggest of the three, was inert. It was in effect a dummy round.

Three 30-year-old artillery rounds have been unearthed at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory property, leaving neighbors of the aerospace giant concerned despite assurances by company officials that the munitions are small and innocuous. Half a dozen employees, working on a $55-million project to clean up chemical and nuclear contaminants, found the cylindrical shells in a ravine beneath 20 feet of dense scrub brush and rocky dirt, Rocketdyne spokesman Dan Beck confirmed Friday.