Israel will not launch a major new assault on Lebanon as long as Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas do not attack northern Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin indicated Friday.
Officials said bombings in southern Lebanon on Thursday that killed nine Israeli soldiers did not violate Syria's unwritten agreement to halt Hezbollah attacks on Israel's northern border.They also stressed that Israel would continue to negotiate peace with Syria despite the greatest one-day Israeli casualty toll in southern Lebanon since Israel created a buffer zone there in 1985 to help shield its border from guerrilla attacks.
Syria, the de facto power in Lebanon, agreed three weeks ago to rein in the guerrillas under a U.S.-brokered truce that ended a massive Israeli offensive in Lebanon provoked by the killing of seven soldiers in the buffer zone. It was tacitly understood at the time that the pact would not stop attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
In Israel, radio stations played melancholy music, parties were canceled and front-page stories on the deaths were edged in black on Friday.
But there was no sign of a military buildup in northern Israel as there was before Israel's bombardment of Lebanon in July.
In southern Lebanon, villagers on Friday braced for more Israeli raids, and about 3,000 people fled their homes, security sources said.
Last month, about 500,000 people fled north during the July 25-31 Israeli blitz that killed 147 people and wounded almost 500 in south Lebanon.