The victims of an Arab guerrilla raid on a farmhouse at Kfar Yuval near the Lebanon border were buried on Monday (16 June). Israeli soldiers carried the coffins of the three dead - a 20-year-old mother and her husband and brother. They were fatally wounded in the guerrilla attack on Sunday morning (15 June) for which the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front (ALF) has since claimed responsibility. While the family was still being held hostage, Israeli troops stormed the building, killing four raiders. The guerrillas were attempting to ransom the Greek Catholic prelate Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, convicted last year as a gunrunner, and other Arab comrades in Israeli jails.

As the people of Kfar Yuval mournad, Israeli troops increased security on their northern border with Lebanon. The raid has triggered off the biggest upsurge of commando activity in the mountainous frontier region for months.

Following the raid, two Israeli border towns were rocketed and shelled. No one was injured. But a woman died and several were injured during Israeli retaliation raids in Lebanon immediately afterwards.

The settlements of Kfar Shouba, a staging point for cross-border guerrilla operations, was reduced to rubble for the second time this year. The town, just 10 kilometres north of Kfar Yuval inside the Lebanese border, was shattered during artillery duels between Israeli and Arab forces last January. Its 4,000 inhabitants took flight but many had returned in the meantime.

Israeli artillery shells also smashed into the Lebanese resort of Nabatiyeh in the renewed flare-up which occurred as Israel's Prime Minister Rabin returned from Washington. Mr. Yitzhak Rabin had just concluded his round of Middle East discussions with United States' President Ford.

SYNOPSIS: The funeral for victims of the Arab guerrilla raid in Northern Israel... the dead were a twenty-year-old mother, her husband and brother. The three were killed after guerrillas attacked their farmhouse in the village of Kfar Yuval. The Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for the attack in which the guerrillas took the family hostage, demanding the release of certain Arab prisoners from Israeli jails.

Israeli troops later stormed the building, killing the raiders.

The two israeli men were killed in the raid. The young mother, who held her seven-month old son for three hours, told doctors she had pleaded with the guerrillas not to harm them. But both the mother and baby had shots fired at them. The mother died the following day but the baby was reported to be in a satisfactory condition.

The incident has triggered off the biggest upsurge of commando fighting in this mountainous frontier region for months. The Israelis have increased their security along the Lebanese border where the guerrillas infiltrated. Following the raid the Israelis mounted retaliation attacks in Lebanon.

They bombed the village of Kfar Shouba, a few miles north of this frontier. The village, a staging point for cross-border guerrilla operations, was shattered for the second time this year. A woman was reported dead and many injured. The flare-up occurred just as Israel's Prime Minister Rabin finished Middle East peace talks in Washington.