Saturday April 14 12:13 PM ET
Fighting in Gaza, Israel-Lebanon Border Heats Up

By Wafa Amr

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers and Palestinians fought heavy gun battles in Gaza on Saturday after Israeli tanks entered Palestinian-controlled territory, and violence also flared along Israel's tense border with Lebanon. Two Israeli army bulldozers and three tanks drove about 100 yards inside Palestinian-controlled territory to demolish a headquarters of Palestinian military intelligence in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza.

Fierce fighting ensued and local hospitals reported that more than 20 Palestinians were wounded.

The Israeli army, battling a nearly seven-month-old uprising for independence, said that earlier in the day its soldiers in the area, adjacent to the border with Egypt, had twice come under hand grenade attack, but suffered no casualties.

``Israeli forces entered the Rafah area and demolished several houses which served as hiding places for gunmen firing at our troops,'' said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Palestinian witnesses said residents of the refugee camp, including children, threw stones at the tanks before gunmen and Palestinian police arrived to confront the Israelis.

``Recently, there have been repeated attacks against our forces doing all sorts of construction work at the border. The Palestinian shooting and firing from (Palestinian-run territory) was a clear attempt to disrupt normal life,'' Gissin said.

``It was made very clear to (Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat, in a (phone) conversation Sharon had with him over the holiday, that Israel will not tolerate attacks on its civilians from across the border in (Palestinian-controlled) 'Area A'.''

On Wednesday, the Israeli army made its first major ground assault on a Palestinian-controlled area, demolishing houses in the southern refugee camp of Khan Younis which it said were used by gunmen.

In the Rafah camp, frightened residents fled their homes as the battle intensified and Israeli forces fired tank shells, missiles and heavy machineguns.

Israeli Planes In Action Over Lebanon

Along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a Hizbollah guerrilla attack on an Israeli tank in the disputed Shebaa Farms area drew a retaliatory air raid on two of the group's positions in south Lebanon, the Israeli army said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

``Our fighters today hit an Israeli tank inside a position they attacked in the occupied Shebaa Farms,'' Hizbollah television station al-Manar said, without elaborating.

Witnesses said Israeli artillery shelled the area before the Israeli air strike.

Gissin said Israel, which pulled out of Lebanon last May, viewed the Hizbollah action as part of ``a very escalatory trend'' and would not tolerate such attacks.

He repeated Israel's demand that the Beirut government deploy its forces at the international border and called on Syria, the main powerbroker in Lebanon, to rein in Hizbollah.

``Syria was supposed to restrain Hizbollah, and it is not doing that,'' Gissin said.

Israeli And Jordanian Foreign Ministers To Meet

Earlier in the day, it appeared that a lull in violence had taken hold ahead of U.S.-hosted security talks and a meeting between the Israeli and Jordanian foreign ministers planned for Monday.

The visit by Jordan's foreign minister, Abdulilah al-Khatib, will be the first to Israel by a Jordanian minister since right-winger Sharon came to power last month.

He brings to his meeting with Israel's Shimon Peres a first-hand account of talks last week in Washington between Jordan's King Abdullah and President Bush as well as a meeting on Thursday which Khatib held with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

After the meeting with Arafat, Khatib told reporters he had assured the Palestinian president that all efforts were under way to lift travel and other bans imposed on Palestinian cities by Israel.

Israel contends the so-called closures stem from security considerations. Palestinian leaders call the edicts collective punishment.

Monday's security talks are seen as crucial in keeping the violence down and even possibly setting the scene for a resumption of peace talks.

Sharon, who has vowed to restore security to Israelis in the face of the uprising that began last September, has said violence must end before peacemaking can begin.

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