Israeli jets swoop on eastern Lebanon

Israeli warplanes struck suspected guerrilla positions in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria early today, despite its suspension of air strikes, security officials said.

The jets carried out two raids at about 1.30am local time (11.30pm Sunday Irish time) near the village of Yanta, about three miles from the Syrian border, the officials said.

Despite the 48-hour halt in aerial attacks, Israeli officials left open the possibility that warplanes might hit targets to stop imminent attacks on Israel and that the suspension could last less than 48 hours if the military completed its inquiry into yesterday’s bloody raid in the south before then.

An Israeli army spokesman said later that the 48-hour suspension of air strikes in Lebanon began at 2am local time and covered the entire country.

An earlier attack, on a main highway near Lebanon’s border with Syria, had occurred about two hours before the start of the suspension, the army said.

Israel says it reserves the right during the suspension to attack any militants who pose an immediate threat, such as preparing to launch rockets or transporting rockets that they are preparing to fire.

Israel agreed to the temporary ceasefire after at least 56 Lebanese were killed, most of them women and children, in the south Lebanese village of Qana in an air strike.

It was not known what was hit in the Yanta area, where radical Syrian-backed Palestinian factions maintain bases in the mountains abutting the Syrian border.

Shortly before the suspension, Israeli warplanes attacked for the second time in the last few days a road between Lebanon and Syria just outside the Lebanese border post at Masnaa, severing the main artery between the two capitals.

The Israeli military confirmed the earlier highway attack that came before the halt in aerial attacks, but said it knew of no others.