The Israeli Air Force struck a Palestinian guerrilla target yesterday near the Lebanese capital of Beirut in response to rocket fire from Lebanon on an Israeli naval vessel earlier in the day, as WND was the first U.S. media outlet to report.
Four missiles fired by fighter planes in three sorties hit the Lebanese headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. There were no reports of casualties. A Palestinian source told WND the base was abandoned.
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The retaliatory strike came just hours after six rockets were fired at an Israeli navy vessel patrolling Israeli territorial waters in the Mediterranean. Three of the rockets landed near a United Nations-supported hospital near the border town of Naqoura, according to U.N. reports.
"The State of Israel is determined not to allow terrorist actions against Israel from Lebanese territories and demands that the Lebanese and Syrian governments take responsibility," an IDF spokesman said.
The Israeli Air Force has carried out a number of retaliatory attacks against terrorist targets in Lebanon since Israel pulled out of the border country in May 2000. It also attacked Syria, which occupies Lebanon and allows the overall leader of Hamas to live openly in Damascus, following a Syrian-aided suicide bombing in Israel last October.
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Israel says yesterday's strike was to demonstrate to Syria and Lebanon that terrorists operating in neighboring countries will not be immune to Israel's anti-terror operations.
