Israel Says Guerrilla Was in Destroyed Ambulance
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Reuters
ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER - Israel justified its attack on an ambulance in south Lebanon
Saturday in which six civilians were killed, saying a Hizbollah guerrilla was also
travelling in the vehicle.
A Reuters reporter who witnessed the attack said the ambulance was packed with
civilians fleeing Israel's assault on south Lebanon. Two women and four young girls were
killed.
But Israel's army chief said the vehicle was travelling from one Hizbollah position to
another, in an area which the Jewish state had told civilians to evacuate.
"We hit a car in which a Hizbollah activist was travelling," Lt.-Gen. Amnon
Shahak told reporters while touring Israel's northern border.
"The car was travelling in the exact area...where Katyushas were fired only a few
hours earlier," he said.
Asked if the eyewitness account was fabricated, Shahak said: "I am not saying that
it is a lie. I'm sure that we'll know all the facts. I'm telling the facts that I know now
-- that a Hizbollah member was in the ambulance."
Shahak said Israel would continue to strike at vehicles travelling in the area.
The raid was launched on the third day of Israel's onslaught against the Islamic
Hizbollah group in south Lebanon which has rained Katyusha rockets at communities along
the Jewish state's northern border.
Around 200,000 residents of south Lebanon have fled the area, streaming north toward
Beirut.
The raid raised the casualty toll as a result of Israeli air and artillery strikes to
21 dead and 48 wounded, most of them civilians, according to Reuters count.
The Reuters reporter said the ambulance, which was white with a red logo and a siren,
was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. It was hurled 20 yards off the road and into the
front room of a house.
An army spokesman said a Hizbollah guerrilla was wounded in the helicopter attack.
"If other individuals in the vehicle were hit during the attack they had been used
by the Hizbollah as a cover for the Hizbollah activities," the spokesman said.
Four Israelis were wounded, one of them severely, in Katyusha attacks Friday. Thousands
of Israelis fled their homes in northern Israel while others spent most of the time in
bomb shelters.
Hours after the helicopter raid, the army told residents of Kiryat Shmona in northern
Israel over loudspeakers to go back to the bomb shelters which some had left briefly
during the day.
