Lebanon warns against further Israel attacks

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) Israel will face retaliation if it
follows a deadly air strike on Lebanon this week with more
attacks, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said in remarks
published Friday.

Speaking to the Cabinet late Thursday, Lahoud said any
further Israeli strikes deep into Lebanon would be followed
by "targeting of Israel in depth," An-Nahar and other Beirut
newspapers reported.

"There will be no security internally for Israel if our

internal ... security becomes a target of aggression,"
An-Nahar quoted Lahoud as saying.

Israeli warplanes attacked a Syrian radar station in central
Lebanon on Monday, killing three Syrian soldiers and
wounding six, in retaliation for a cross-border strike by
Hezbollah guerrillas that killed an Israeli soldier.

On Friday, Israeli jets flew over central Lebanon and
Beirut, as they have done almost daily since Monday's
strike.

The U.N. representative for south Lebanon, Staffan De
Mistura, said Friday that the flights violated U.N.
resolutions and "should be stopped."

Lahoud also told the Cabinet that Syria and Lebanon rejected
what he claimed was an Israeli proposal for Lebanese and
Syrian troops to keep the peace on Lebanon's border with
Israel in return for Israeli support for a permanent Syrian
presence in Lebanon.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said she
was not aware of any such proposal. For many years, Israel
has said it is not opposed to the presence of Syrian forces
in Lebanon but wants them to put a stop to cross-border
attacks.

Lahoud told the Cabinet the Israeli proposal was made
through diplomatic channels two months ago, the reports
said. He called it a form of barter and said guerrillas
would go on attacking Israel.

"Resistance will continue," he said. "And as barter is
rejected, new formulas that Israel is trying to impose are
also rejected."

Lebanon says guerrilla attacks on Israel are justified
because it is still occupying Lebanese territory at Chebaa
Farms, a tiny parcel of land in the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights.

While Lebanon and Syria say Chebaa is Lebanese, U.N.
cartographers say it is Syrian and that Israel completed its
withdrawal from Lebanon last year after an 18-year
occupation.

Since the Israeli withdrawal last May, Christian Lebanese
leaders have called on Syria to pull its 35,000 troops out
of Lebanon. A 1989 agreement that helped end the Lebanese
civil war of 1975-90 called for an eventual withdrawal of
Syrian forces.

However, Lahoud and Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have
rejected demands for a Syrian withdrawal, arguing that
Syrian forces help maintain Lebanon's internal stability.