Israeli gunboats shelled an alleged Palestinian guerrilla base in the Rashidiyeh refuges camp near Tyre, in Southern Lebanon on Tuesday (13 August). One civilian was killed and four wounded.

The camp houses some 12,000 people and is the second largest in Lebanon. The Israelis said that their chief objective was a camp building used by the guerrillas as a naval headquarters. They claim that a guerrilla boat set out from thee on Friday (9 August) to carry out a raid on Israel, but as intercepted and sunk off the Southern Lebanese coast.

Israeli military sources denied that Tuesday's raid was retaliatory, maintaining that it was part of campaign to hit the guerrillas wherever they are found.

Israel also claims that this campaign is working -- citing as evidence protests by villagers and Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon at the continuing presence of guerrilla camps in their midst.

Also on Tuesday it was reported that Mr. Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian guerrilla leader, had ordered his troops out of the south eastern Lebanese town of Rashaya al-Fukhar and its vicinity after the area had been the target of Israeli air raids.