ISRAEL: An Israeli boy (16) was killed in northern Israel yesterday by cross-border fire from Hizbullah in south Lebanon. It was the first fatality from cross-border fire since Israel withdrew its soldiers from southern Lebanon to the international border in 2000, writes David Horovitz in Jerusalem.
Israel immediately responded with air raids directed at the source of the fire in south Lebanon, Israeli army officials said. Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon was also consulting with senior ministers and generals last night about the possibility of a further military response.
Israel also asked the Bush administration to convey to Lebanon and to Syria - the key power in Lebanon - that Israel would respond more heavily if the fire did not halt immediately. The mayor of the northern Shlomi area, where the fatal shells fell, said that Israel, if necessary, had to disrupt everyday life in Beirut to get home the message that tranquillity had to prevail across the border. "If we can't live normally here, nor should they be able to," said Mr Meir Dadon.
The dead boy's mother, surrounded by tearful relatives, wailed that Mr Sharon had to "put an end to this killing". Her son, Haviv Dadon, was killed by shrapnel from the Hizbullah shell as he stood with friends on an outdoor staircase outside a shopping centre. He had just bought a roll for his lunch.
Israeli officials said they wanted to avoid further escalation, and still hoped international pressure could restore calm. Even before yesterday's fatality, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Dan Gillerman, had written to the Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, to protest over previous cross-border fire by Hizbullah, and to urge that international pressure be brought to bear on Syria; the Shia Hizbullah receives arms from Iran via Damascus. Mr Gillerman said yesterday it was an absurd situation that Syria, which sponsored Hizbullah, an organisation bent on destabilising the region, was currently head of the UN Security Council.
Hizbullah is blaming Israel for initiating the latest escalation, which threatens to open a new hostile front at a time when, relatively speaking, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has quietened. Hizbullah officials say their cross-border fire in recent days is a response to the killing of one of their officials, Ali Hussein Saleh, in a car-bomb outside Beirut a week ago, an attack blamed on Israel. Israel has made no comment on that incident.
The Bush administration, echoing Israel's concerns, has called on both the Lebanese and the Syrian governments to rein in Hizbullah, saying the group is engaged in a "calculated and provocative escalation". The Syrian state daily Tishrin responded yesterday by accusing Israel of deliberate escalation.
Israel withdrew its forces from a so-called "security zone" in south Lebanon - a buffer against cross-border attacks - in May 2000, to an international border line certified by the UN. Hizbullah immediately deployed throughout the vacated area, all the way up to the border fence. Since then, three Israeli soldiers have been captured by Hizbullah at one disputed area of the border, and there have been several fatalities when gunmen came across the border into Israel.
Hizbullah has tried to initiate prisoner exchanges: the three soldiers, and a fourth Israeli captured in Europe, in return for 15 Lebanese detainees held by Israel and a large number of Palestinian prisoner releases.