by Salim Yassine

BEIRUT (AFP) - Israeli fighter jets bombed Palestinian and Lebanese militant targets in Lebanon after guerrillas fired rockets into Israel in the fiercest cross-border violence seen this year. A fighter with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and a member of a Syrian-backed radical Palestinian group were killed in the Israeli raids, while attacks from Lebanon left two Israeli soldiers wounded.

Each side blamed the other for the tit-for-tat attacks on the border, which remains highly volatile six years after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000. UN peacekeepers later said they had brokered a ceasefire, and calm appeared to have returned to the volatile area by early evening.

"Following intensive contacts with all parties throughout Sunday, UNIFIL has succeeded in obtaining a ceasefire which should take effect on the ground," Milos Strugel, spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, told AFP.

Residents of the northern Israeli towns of Kiryat Shmona and Nahariya were ordered into shelters for several hours amid the fierce shelling but were later given the all-clear.

By Leila Hatoum

BEIRUT: The speaker of Lebanon's Parliament insisted Thursday that Damascus "welcomes and encourages" the Lebanese national dialogue and "has no problems with it." Nabih Berri, who made the comments during a celebration of Liberation Day six years after the Israeli withdrawal from most of the country's Southern territories, said: "Lebanon is being used to besiege Syria and Syria is being used to hit the last vestiges of resistance and defense line against Israel in Lebanon.

"This way we will all be losers," he warned. "I call for the establishment of a true Lebanese-Syrian dialogue.

"I wonder why things are always portrayed in such a way that Syria is the one that stands as a barrier in the face of demands imposed on it," he added. "Lebanon, on many occasions has refused proposals as well."

Lebanese participants at the national dialogue table - as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1680 - have requested that Syria establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon and demarcate the countries' border.

Syria has not yet given Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora the green light to visit Damascus to discuss these matters, despite the fact that Resolution 1680, issued last week, "strongly encourages the Syrian government" to do so.

Berri had stormed out of a Parliament session Tuesday after a heated debate with MP and former Minister Bahij Tabbara, suspending it less than an hour after its start. The conflict with Tabbara was over Syrian-Lebanese relations, when Tabbara asked: "We want to know if the open doors to our officials in Syria were those of Syria's prison doors, or what?"

Berri had made a statement on Monday that "Damascus' doors are open for any Lebanese official," referring to a possible open road for Siniora to visit Damascus.

by Muntasser Abdallah

SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) - A leader of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, Mahmoud al-Majzub, has been killed in a car bomb attack in Lebanon's main southern city of Sidon. Majzub's brother Nidal, who had been beside him at the time of the blast, was killed instantly, while the Jihad militant was taken to hospital gravely wounded.

"Mahmoud al-Majzub succumbed to his wounds despite all the efforts to save his life," said a source from Sidon hospital where he was being treated hours after the blast.

Islamic Jihad, one of the most extreme Palestinian movements and responsible for all the most recent suicide attacks inside Israel, vowed to take revenge. But the Israeli army insisted it was not responsible.

By Rym Ghazal

BEIRUT: A Lebanese soldier died in hospital on Friday, two days after being wounded in clashes between the army and pro-Syrian Palestinian gunmen near the Syrian border.

In the latest development since the violence, officials confirmed that trucks carrying arms and members of the Fatah al-Intifada had in fact entered Lebanon from Syria, after initially denying such reports.

Corporal Mustafa Medlej, 21, died in hospital in the southeastern village of Jeb Janine after sustaining two head wounds during clashes on Wednesday between Lebanese troops and Fatah al-Intifada militants in the mountainous area of Halwa-Yanta, located about three kilometers from the Syrian border, according to an army statement.

"There was a redeployment of men and arms in the posts held by Fatah al-Intifada on Wednesday and Thursday night," the statement said.

"Several of the Palestinian fighters involved in the shooting of Lebanese soldiers have been identified and they will be arrested immediately and prosecuted by the Lebanese judiciary," he added.

Security sources told The Daily Star that the army had asked that three members of Fatah al-Intifada be handed over, not two as had been previously reported. The three are said to be responsible for starting the incident Wednesday.

Initial reports said Fatah al-Intifada had received late Wednesday from Syria some 50 new members and five trucks laden with arms and ammunition to reinforce their positions.