Bombing Stops, but Tensions High After Attacks in Israel, Lebanon

KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel —  Angry, frightened and frustrated by rocket attacks that killed two people here and blasted a gaping hole in city hall, residents of this border community emerged from bomb shelters Friday to bury their dead and demand that Israel take even tougher action against Lebanon.

Many residents, red-eyed and disheveled after a night of listening for the shrill whine of Katyusha rockets, said Israel must strike hard at Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, as it did late Thursday and early Friday in retaliation for a heavy bombardment of northern Israel by Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon.

“If I don’t sleep well, why should [the Lebanese] sleep well?” asked a weary-looking Itzik Arditi, 41, a neighbor of the two men killed in the Hezbollah attack. “If we have peace, they can sleep in my house. But until then, they shouldn’t sleep at all.”

Netanyahu Acted as Term Nearly Up

An uneasy calm prevailed on both sides of the border Friday, a day after Israeli planes pounded electrical power plants, bridges and guerrilla outposts in Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 50. The raids on Lebanon were the bloodiest and most extensive by Israel in more than three years.

The decision by lame-duck Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send the warplanes over Lebanon, coming in the waning moments of his government, is certain to complicate efforts by his successor to pacify Israel’s last active war front. For more than 20 years, Israeli troops have occupied a strip of southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is waging a war of attrition to oust them.

With Israeli casualties continuing in Lebanon and public pressure growing for a withdrawal, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak had campaigned on a promise to pull the troops out within a year as part of a peace deal with Lebanon’s master, Syria.

Netanyahu did not inform Barak of the retaliation plans until after the planes took off, and Barak refused to comment Friday on the raids.

But other top Israeli officials said Israel would mount new raids if Hezbollah guerrillas continue firing rockets on northern Israeli towns. Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli army chief of staff, warned that his air force was prepared to strike again against infrastructure targets.

Even as the overnight explosions reverberated in both countries, Israel and Lebanon exchanged similar epithets to brand one another’s actions. “Savage,” said Israel. “Barbaric,” said Lebanon. Each blamed the other for provoking the attacks.

“This destruction makes us believe that Israel is not for a peace process,” Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss said Friday in Beirut. Much of the Lebanese capital remained without electricity during the day, some telephone service was cut and a main coastal highway severed.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to punish Israel for its assault.

Touring this shaken Israeli community Friday, Netanyahu said he hoped the raids would put an end to the spiral of violence.

“We can’t accept a situation in which they fire missiles on Israel’s cities and let it pass quietly,” Netanyahu told reporters. “With this, we hope and want quiet to prevail on both sides of the border as quickly as possible.”

Residents Weary of Being on Front Line

The streets here were largely empty at midday. Army spokesmen said about 30% of the town’s 22,000 residents had left to spend the weekend with friends and relatives farther south. Only a handful of residents took advantage of an army decision to allow them a brief respite from the shelters to stock up on food.

Others gathered near the home of Shimon Elimelech, 42, a contractor and father of four who was killed by the rocket that struck just above the front door of the municipal offices here. The blast left a hole in the building’s third floor and sent shrapnel slicing through cars and deep into concrete walls.

Several people said Elimelech and Tony Zana, who was killed by the same rocket, had hurried to the municipal offices in the middle of the barrage to offer their help to others.

“We’ve all become hostages,” said Asher Twiezer, a 29-year-old teacher, as he sat amid a group of grim-faced men near Elimelech’s apartment building. “If one Lebanese woman is scratched or wounded, we have to go to the bomb shelters. And that hurts us for months. It hurts tourism, business, everything.”

He and others praised the massive attacks that Israeli forces staged in Lebanon, and said they favored further retaliation against targets there and even in Syria.

“Under the conditions that exist now, we should hit Damascus because we know that everything in Lebanon comes through Syria,” an older man said.

The group stood to watch as Elimelech’s widow emerged from the building, her arms around two weeping young boys. “Where is our father?” she asked over and over as they made their way to a car waiting to take them to the funeral.

Arditi, the neighbor, stood nearby talking about the difficulties of life in Kiryat Shemona, a struggling town that is often the first target for Hezbollah’s gunners.

“We’ve really had enough,” said Arditi, a technician at a poultry processing plant here. “When you’re in the middle of dental work, when you’re at the market, any time, you suddenly have to grab everything and run to the shelters.”

Arditi said it troubled him when Lebanese civilians were hurt or killed in Israeli air raids, but he believed Israel now had little choice but to retaliate for the Katyusha rocket attacks by hitting civilian targets.

The death and destruction threw cold water on optimism generated by Barak’s election last month and added urgency to the incoming leader’s hopes of reviving peace talks with Syria. It came the same week that Barak and Syrian President Hafez Assad praised one another as men sincere about peace.

On Friday, Syria accused Netanyahu of attempting to sabotage Barak’s efforts.

“It seems that Netanyahu is determined to quit political life with a big, foolish act,” the official Syrian Radio said.

Israel on Friday defended its choice of targets, saying it went after infrastructure used by Hezbollah. But, by taking the battle to Beirut, Israel was also attempting to shift the terms of the debate. Military commanders and politicians, including those who most actively advocate peace, have long demanded that retaliation for Hezbollah’s attacks be carried out against Lebanese infrastructure to emphasize that Israel holds Lebanon, and Syria, responsible.

Publicly, Barak appeared eager to keep his distance from the military decisions, perhaps as a way to approach Syria on a more conciliatory footing.

Israeli newspapers reported that Barak was angered by Netanyahu’s failure to consult him before sending in warplanes. According to these accounts, Barak had effectively vetoed two earlier plans by Netanyahu to retaliate against Hezbollah--on the night of the May 17 election, when Hezbollah fired rockets on Kiryat Shemona, and again earlier this week.

*

Tracy Wilkinson in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.