Israel probes poor performance by troops near Lebanon border

TEL AVIV — An Israeli military investigation has pointed to several mishaps connected to a Hizbullah attack along the northern border earlier this month.

Military sources said the findings point to deficient capabilities among Israeli troops and air power amid the growing confrontation with Lebanon. The investigation concerned a Hizbullah rocket attack earlier this month in which an Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded in the disputed Shebaa plateau.

The investigation said Hizbullah targeted an Israeli command car that drove along an isolated road prohibited by military commanders. After the Hizbullah attack on Feb. 9, the sources said, Israel responded in a haphazard fashion.

For example, the sources said, Israeli helicopters and artillery fired toward Lebanon in what was termed an ineffective manner. Attack helicopters failed to strike any Hizbullah targets in southern Lebanon, the sources said.

Israeli artillery fared even worse, the sources said. Gunners did not have proper shells and mistakenly fired toward the Israeli border city of Metullah in what the investigation determined was a hurried response to the Hizbullah attack. Nobody was hurt in the Israeli shelling.

Military sources said senior commanders have been dismayed by the poor performance of Israeli troops deployed along the northern border with Lebanon. The sources acknowledged that many lessons from previous mishaps have not been implemented in the field.

Meanwhile, the military brass has been drafting lessons and revising doctrine amid the five-month-old mini-war with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The effort comes amid another escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories and assertions by Israeli officers that loyalists of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat have extorted money from Palestinians to stop shooting from their neighborhoods toward Israeli positions and thus avoiding a counterattack.