Israel Military Assaults Lebanon

An Israeli soldier was killed and another seriously wounded in southern Lebanon on Tuesday when members of their own unit apparently mistook them for Lebanese guerrillas and opened fire. The shooting, which an Israeli army spokesman said was the first fatal "friendly fire" incident involving Israeli troops in more than a year, underscored the tense situation in Israel's self-delared security zone across the Lebanese border.

Israeli jets on Tuesday demolished a reservoir that supplied water to 20 villages, crippling another economic target in an effort to force the Beirut government to strike at Iranian-backed guerrillas in southern Lebanon, security sources said. There was no truce in sight after four days of shuttle diplomacy and 13 days of bloodletting. Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said the guerrillas would never sign an accord with Israel.

The joke here is that the world leaders streaming in to see Syrian President Hafez Assad these days have to take a number. Americans, Russians, French, Italians, Iranians--all of them have come seeking favors or help from Assad. On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto dropped by, making up for a state visit that had been delayed because of American and Russian officials' pilgrimages here Saturday.

Chanting "Israel out of Lebanon," several thousand Arab Americans rallied Tuesday across the street from the White House to demand that President Clinton end what they called U.S. complicity in an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians.

The crisis in Lebanon escalated Friday with Israeli helicopter gunships for the first time striking a Syrian military outpost in Beirut, killing one soldier. Civilians fled by the tens of thousands as Israel rained down more rockets and bombs across southern Lebanon in its drive to avenge cross-border rocket attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas. At least 11 people were killed and more than 40 were wounded in the second day of intense assaults, Lebanese police and hospital officials said.

Israel's reprisal attacks on Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut and throughout Lebanon have been intended as impressive surgical strikes and may well have done serious damage to the Iranian-backed guerrillas. But Israel never expected the military operation to end the decade-long war against Hezbollah, a militia drawn from Lebanon's Shiite Muslims. That end, Israel believes, can come only through negotiations with Syria, the de facto ruler of Lebanon and overseer of Hezbollah.

Israel's political establishment was outraged Wednesday over an extraordinary public statement by the commander of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon that the army would "not permit" Prime Minister Shimon Peres to stop "Operation Grapes of Wrath" before the military had achieved its goals. The prime minister's office called the declaration "scandalous," Israel's chief of staff said it was "stupid," and the commander, Brig. Gen.

Two powerful Israeli shells meant for Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday slammed instead into a U.N. compound sheltering civilians, exploding in a whirlwind of heat and shearing metal that killed more than 75 people almost instantly. As President Clinton urged an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon by all parties, a shocked Israel expressed regret for the carnage and blamed rocket-launching Hezbollah fighters for "hiding behind civilians." The annihilating barrage at the U.N.

In a reprisal attack that heightened fears about the search for peace in the Middle East, Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships on Thursday struck at Hezbollah guerrillas across Lebanon, hitting Beirut for the first time in 14 years. At least five people were killed and more than a dozen wounded by rockets from the attacking Israeli aircraft, according to Lebanese government and hospital officials.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Saturday launched a round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at bringing about a cease-fire in Lebanon as the United States struggled to prevent other governments from undercutting U.S. influence in the Middle East. The peace efforts took place as fighting in southern Lebanon spread to the highways, with Israeli gunboats firing cannons at civilian cars on the country's main coastal road.