Israel, Lebanon to hold fire

BEIRUT, MAY 6. After two days of tit-for-tat attacks that killed an Israeli soldier and two Lebanese civilians, Lebanese guerrillas and Israel both said they would hold their fire.

The separate announcements came yesterday, after Israeli warplanes left a deep crater in the highway from Beirut to the Syrian capital of Damascus and knocked out power stations in the Beirut suburb of Bsaleem and in the northern port city of Tripoli.

The latest round of retaliatory strikes - the worst in nearly a year - began Thursday when two Lebanese women were killed in shelling by Israel's allied militia in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah responded with a fierce rocket attack on Israel's northern border, killing a soldier and wounding 26 other people.

Fighting continued yesterday, with Israel bombing major Lebanese cities and Shiite Muslim guerrillas sending more rockets into northern Israel. Israel briefly responded before deciding during a closed-door, high-level meeting not to retaliate because no one had been killed in yesterday morning rocket attack.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, and the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, issued statements urging both sides to stop the fighting. The statements blamed neither side.

- AP

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Section  : International
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