More on war and the media.... Yoshie ***** Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company April 17, 1999, Saturday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 6; Column 4; Foreign Desk HEADLINE: Israelis in Lebanon Fire on Journalists BYLINE: AP DATELINE: ARNOUN, Lebanon, April 16 BODY: Israeli soldiers and allied militiamen opened fire today on journalists who were approaching a southern Lebanese village seized by the troops a day before. A Lebanese journalist was wounded. Israeli warplanes, meanwhile, flew over southern Lebanon and Beirut, rattling windows in the capital. Prime Minister Salim Hoss denounced Israel's seizure of the village, Arnoun, as a "terrorist operation par excellence," and asked the United Nations, the United States and France to intervene against Israel's expansion of its occupied zone in southern Lebanon. Israeli soldiers, along with two tanks and allies from the South Lebanon Army, descended on Arnoun on Thursday night from a hilltop base at the nearby Crusader-era Beaufort Castle. They sealed the town off with barbed wire to bar entry and used bulldozers to put up earthen barricades. The Israeli actions came after an Israeli soldier patrolling near Arnoun was killed on Monday by a roadside bomb planted by Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas, who are battling to eject Israeli troops from south Lebanon. This morning, Israeli soldiers standing behind the newly erected fence lobbed smoke grenades to disperse a group of journalists approaching the village. They also warned them through loudspeakers against moving closer. When the 10 journalists continued to draw near, the soldiers opened fire. Kassem Dergham, a Lebanese sound technician working for Abu Dhabi television in the United Arab Emirates, was shot in the back and rushed by colleagues to a hospital four miles away. Doctors removed what appeared to be a rubber bullet that was embedded near his spinal cord, hospital officials said. Mr. Dergham, 56, was reported in stable condition. The Israeli Army said today that its troops and allied militia had taken "preventive security measures" to prevent the storage of guerrilla arms and ammunition in Arnoun. The pro-Iran Hezbollah vowed to drive Israeli troops from Arnoun. "We will continue our holy war to liberate the land," said its deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem. South Lebanon Army officials said that Arnoun is now part of the zone Israel set up in 1985 in the southernmost tenth of Lebanon to prevent guerrilla attacks across the border. Israel has often attacked Arnoun, four miles north of the border, in retaliation for guerrilla attacks. Its troops have blown up a half dozen houses in the village and most of its 2,000 residents have left after Israeli bombardments. Israeli troops first seized Arnoun in February, surrounding it with barbed wire. A week later, Lebanese university students cut down the wire and Israel never repaired it, though its troops continued to patrol the village. After the village was seized on Thursday night, about 50 South Lebanon Army militiamen set up a base in the village and the Israeli Army began patrols around it, a villager said by telephone. GRAPHIC: Map of Lebanon showing location of Arnoun: Israel first seized Arnoun in February. Most residents have left. *****
