ISRAELI leaders weighed their options yesterday on how to reply to Hizbullah guerrilla attacks in an occupied border zone of south Lebanon, after coming under pressure from the media to hit hard.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, refused to be drawn into a swift strike after three attacks by Iranian backed Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon, including a suicide bombing on a patrol on Wednesday that killed an Israeli officer.
He vowed Israel would hit back, but said its response will not be dictated by opinion or by the press".
Six Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the month and more than 20 wounded in attacks by the Hizbullah which spearheads resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The Deputy Defence Minister, Mr Ori Orr, denied reports that President Clinton had intervened on Tuesday to prevent Israeli attacks. But Washington urged restraint on Wednesday, worried that a flare up of violence could unhinge the peace process.
President Ezer Weizman told Israel radio. "We are confronted by a very serious, immediate problem in Lebanon as well as a dilemma over our [American] uncle.
"We have to take it into consideration but our decision must be solely based on our interests."
Israeli newspapers called for action yesterday saying the latest attacks had "overstepped the mark".
Mr Peres has no more bizarre excuses for not acting, neither the weather, nor the escape of terrorists to northern Lebanon nor the presence of journalists along the border with Lebanon", said the daily Yediot Aharonot.
Earlier yesterday Israeli gun boats patrolled the waters off southern Lebanon and fired dozens of shells at Hizbullah potions north of the "security zone".
Mr Peres, with an eye on May elections, is under pressure to do more to prove he can ensure security with the attacks following hard on the heels of a wave of Islamic militant bombings in Israel which left 62 dead.
"To win the elections he wants to be seen by public opinion as tougher than Yitzhak Rabin," the former prime minister murdered at a Tel Aviv peace rally in November, said one minister asking to remain anonymous. So "on the advice of his campaign advisers" Mr Peres has decided to "adopt an aggressive tone against the Palestinians as well as the Syrians, Hizbullah and all the Arabs".
Hizbullah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, pledged to be bound by a pact preventing attacks on northern Israel as long as Israel refrained from shelling Lebanese villages. "But if Israel steps up its attacks against civilians, the Katyusha rocket attacks will resume because we see this as a preventative measure to force Israel to spare our civilian population," he warned.
Israel has stepped up its battle against Islamic militants, destroying two more homes of suicide bombers and preparing to expel up to 10 Palestinians.
A total of seven houses belonging to suicide bombers or those accused of masterminding anti Israeli attacks have now been flattened in a series of measures designed by Israel to dissuade any further would be bombers.