Worried villagers stayed indoors today, fearing more Israeli raids on southern Lebanon in retaliation for the nine Israeli soldiers killed in Israel's deadliest day of guerrilla attacks since 1985.
Bombing attacks by Iranian-backed guerrillas on Thursday and Israeli raids that followed have raised tensions on the only active Arab-Israeli front, which suffered an Israeli onslaught in July because of guerrilla attacks.The fighting came less than two weeks before Middle East peace talks are to resume in Washington.
In Israel, officials of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government rejected opposition demands today that it put more pressure on Syria, the power broker in Lebanon, to stop the attacks and urged that the peace talks move forward.
An Israeli army spokesman said a 22-year-old Israeli lieutenant died today of injuries sustained in Thursday's bombings, raising the death toll from the attacks to nine. It was the highest one-day death toll since Israel carved out its self-styled "security zone" in south Lebanon in 1985.
Israeli warplanes patrolled the region overnight, sometimes lighting the sky with parachute flares, but no bombing raids were reported, said security sources in Lebanon, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The sources said about 2,000 villagers fled their homes, many heading to Beirut. But there was no sign that residents were repeating last month's exodus, in which about 500,000 people fled to the north.