Israelis Fire on Cargo Ship in Sidon Port

BEIRUT —  Israeli gunboats opened fire on a cargo ship in the southern port of Sidon today, driving swimmers out of the water and setting the ship ablaze, security sources said.

Elsewhere, Shia militiamen surrounded a Palestinian refugee camp outside the port of Tyre and demanded that residents turn over gunmen responsible for an ambush in which a militiaman was killed.

Continuing clashes between Christian and Muslim militiamen claimed two more lives in the Beirut area.

In Sidon, 24 miles south of Beirut, the freighter Rula was chased into port by two Israeli gunboats whose captains suspected that it was involved in smuggling arms, security sources said.

Warning to Civilians

When the vessel made port safely, the Israeli sailors warned civilians away through a loudspeaker and then opened fire with machine guns, setting the ship ablaze and wounding two people, the sources said.

They said Muslim militiamen responded with long-range artillery fire from shore batteries as swimmers scurried out of the surrounding waters onto the beaches and citizens hurried off the city’s streets.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli military issued a short statement saying an Israeli crewman was slightly wounded in an exchange of fire with a merchant ship that was carrying out “suspicious activity” off the Sidon coast.

“When the Israeli navy vessels neared the merchant ship, fire was directed at them from the merchant ship and the shore,” the military said. “The Israeli navy vessels returned fire at the merchant ship” causing unspecified damage.

Refugee Camp Besieged

Farther south in Tyre, members of Nabih Berri’s Amal militia besieged the Palestinian refugee camp of Al Bass after one of their men was killed in a Palestinian ambush outside the camp.

A militia spokesman said the Palestinians were told that Amal search parties would enter the camp and apprehend the assailants if the men were not surrendered.

Police said two people were killed today in Beirut, where fierce fighting continued between Christian and Muslim militiaman entrenched along the Green Line that divides the city into its eastern and western sectors.

A 52-year-old woman was killed by a sniper while collecting laundry from a clothesline on her third-floor balcony, they said. The other victim was a 55-year-old man who died when an artillery shell crashed into a residential neighborhood.