Israeli forces, guerrillas clash on Lebanon border

LUCI, Lebanon, May 28 (Reuters) Israeli jets attacked Syrian-backed Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas in Lebanon today, sparking gunbattles on the volatile border hours after rockets fired into northern Israel wounded an Israeli soldier.

One Palestinian militant and a Hizbollah fighter were killed and two Lebanese civilians and another Israeli soldier were wounded in one of the worst bouts of violence since Israel ended a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon six years ago.

The Israeli army ordered residents living in northern areas to go to bomb shelters after a clash between Hizbollah and Israeli soldiers near Kibbutz Menara and mortar and rocket fire into northern Israel, Israeli security sources said.

Hizbollah guerrillas, backed by Syria and Iran, also attacked Israeli posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, Lebanese witnesses said.

UN peacekeepers later brokered a ceasefire that appeared to be taking hold.

''We are in contact with both sides. We brokered a ceasefire and we hope this agreement will take hold,'' Milos Strugar, senior adviser to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), told Reuters. ''There is still some sporadic fire, but hopefully things will be quiet very soon.'' The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks into Israel and vowed more. It said they were in retaliation for the killing of an Islamic Jihad official and his brother in a car bombing in southern Lebanon on Friday.

Witnesses said Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded areas along different parts of the border.

The Israeli army said those attacks targeted suspected Hizbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to ''a large scale attack on Israeli communities and military bases in northern Israel''.

''Let there be no doubt that we will deal a very painful blow to whoever tries to disrupt life along our northern border,'' Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israeli television.

''I think those taking part in this fire have miscalculated.

They will receive an unequivocal and very aggressive response without hesitation if they don't stop.'' PALESTINIAN BASES Hours earlier Israeli warplanes struck a military base just outside Beirut and another in the eastern Bekaa Valley, both run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which is based in Damascus.

Palestinian militants at the base near the eastern village of Luci fired automatic rifles and anti-aircraft guns at the planes, while the Lebanese army said its anti-aircraft units responded to the attack on the Naameh base near Beirut.

One of the bases, which consist of tunnels dug into the hills, was used to store arms.

Hizbollah, which controls the Lebanese side of the border and sporadically attacks Israeli posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms, condemned the Israeli strikes on the Palestinian bases.

''These enemy raids are a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and independence and an assault on its territories,'' the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group said in a statement.

The group, which is under international pressure to disarm, said this week that it had thousands of rockets able to hit any target in northern Israel should the Jewish state attack Lebanese territory again.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said earlier that Israel planned to lodge a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over the initial rocket attack on the town of Safed.

REUTERS CH KP2249