Nine people were killed in attacks in southern Lebanon yesterday, including six who died when the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army (SLA) fired mortar rounds into the southern port city of Sidon, officials said. Another 38 people were wounded in the mortar barrage on Sidon, while five others were wounded elsewhere in southern Lebanon.
The Sidon attack came hours after a bombing in the Christian area of Jezzine in Israel's south Lebanon buffer zone in which the son and daughter of the late SLA security chief were killed and which Israel blamed on Hizbullah guerrillas.
The Lebanese army responded to the Sidon attack by shelling SLA positions in south Lebanon.
A Lebanese civilian was also killed and two women were wounded in shelling of Jezzine, on the northern edge of the Israeli occupied zone in southern Lebanon, last night, the SLA said.
Lebanese militiamen led by a pro-Israeli commander, Mr Antoine Lahd, fired three rounds of shells at Lebanon's southern port of Sidon yesterday, killing six civilians, security sources said.
"We have two heads and parts of bodies in the post-mortem room. Many people came but nobody was able to identify them. We still don't know who they belong to," said a medic at Sidon's Ghassan Hamoud hospital.
Israel's army denied firing the shells, instead blaming the attack on forces serving under Mr Lahd around the Jezzine area outside an occupation zone patrolled by Israel and Lahd's South Lebanon Army (SLA).
"The SLA is backed by Israel whereas the people who fired are not backed by Israel," an Israeli military source said.
Israel and its SLA allies patrol a 15-km deep border zone set up inside Lebanon with the declared aim of preventing guerrilla attacks on Israel's northern border.
In Jerusalem, the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, decided to transfer to the Palestinian Authority about a third of the funds frozen by Israel after a double suicide bombing on July 30th, his spokesman said.
The decision followed what the spokesman, Mr Shai Bazak, called "partial co-operation" by the authority in the investigation of the marketplace attack which killed 16 people, including the two bombers.
An aide to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, welcomed the decision. The US, the main Middle East peace broker, also hailed the partial thaw.