Israelis launch airstrike after guerrilla attack on Lebanese border

Israeli warplanes have blasted suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon, shortly after Hezbollah fighters attacked an Israeli tank.

The airstrike came shortly after the Hezbollah guerrilla group said its fighters hit an Israeli tank with a missile, killing or wounding members of the crew.

The guerrillas hit the tank with a Sagger missile in the Chebaa Farms area, a disputed zone on the border of Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In Jerusalem, a spokesman for the Israeli army said a military base at Chebaa Farms was attacked and the army is returning fire.

The Israeli spokesman declined to comment on reports of casualties.

Hezbollah said Israeli troops retaliated by firing mortar shells into the mountains on the Lebanese side of the border.

Lebanese officials and residents of the village of Kfar Chouba, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israeli warplanes and artillery guns blasted suspected guerrilla targets in the mountains on the Lebanese side of the border after the tank attack.

Chebaa Farms was captured by Israel in its offensive against Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Lebanon claims the area as its territory, but UN cartographers found last year that the zone belongs to Syria. Syria supports the Lebanese claim to Chebaa.

Hezbollah has vowed to continue fighting Israel until it withdraws from Chebaa. The Iranian-backed guerrilla group argues that the withdrawal from Lebanon that Israel carried out in May 2000 is not complete.