LEBANON: GUERRILLAS AND ISRAELI SOLDIERS DIE IN FOREST FIRE

(28 Aug 1997) Natural Sound

Reports from Lebanon say that three Israeli soldiers burned to death and four guerrillas were killed in a firefight on Thursday.

The fight came only hours after Israeli warplanes blasted suspected Hezbollah bases in the mountains of south Lebanon.

The three troops died - and 10 others were wounded - when Israeli forces got trapped in a blazing forest in Wadi Al-Hojeir, on the edge of the Israeli-occupied buffer zone.

The fighting was the latest in an escalation of the conflict between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

Billows of smoke rose from the mountains and valleys in Wadi Al-Hojeir
where the three Israeli soldiers reportedly burned to death.

Four Hezbollah guerrillas were also said to have been killed.

Israeli helicopters flew over the burning valley to evacuate trapped soldiers.

The Israeli army declined to comment on the reports, but Israeli T-V reported a heavy fire in the area of the fighting.

Earlier, Lebanese security officials said two Israeli jets fired two air-to-surface missiles on suspected guerrilla hideouts in the highlands of Iqlim al-Tuffah, or Apple Province.

The Israeli army confirmed the air raid, and said the pilots reported accurate hits.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the raid, although Hezbollah claimed to have hit several Israelis.

But the immediate results were clear - buildings were in ruins, and roads had huge craters.

The targeted area of Ain Bouswar faces an Israeli-occupied swathe of south Lebanon, which is under the control of some 15-hundred Israeli soldiers and the 25-hundred allied militiamen of the South Lebanon Army.

A war of attrition to drive out these forces is led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed fundamentalist Shiite Muslim group that often launches attacks from Ain Bouswar.

Thursday's air strike against Hezbollah positions was the second in less than a week.

Last Saturday, Israeli air force and artillery pounded suspected Hezbollah hideouts near Shiite Muslim villages in south Lebanon.

No casualties were reported in those attacks.

The hostilities marked an escalation of violence that has killed 26 people this month in south Lebanon, the last active war front in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israel occupied south Lebanon and in 1985 called it a "security zone," saying it will act as a buffer against cross-border incursions by guerrillas into northern Israeli towns.

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