Israeli commandos stormed a Hezbollah-run hospital in Lebanon early today, capturing three guerillas and killing 10 others in a major escalation of the 3-week-old war, officials said.
After the dramatic, four-hour raid on the ancient Roman city of Baalbek ended, the Israeli military said all its soldiers returned unharmed to their base, but gave no further details.
The attack on Baalbek – once a Syrian army headquarters 80 miles north of Israel – was the deepest ground attack into Lebanon since the fighting began 21 days ago.
“During the night, [Israeli] forces operated in the town of Baalbek,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said. “A number of terrorists were also arrested and taken to Israel.”
The purpose of the attack was to seize Mohammed Yazbik, a high-level Hezbollah commander, and collect intelligence about the group’s weaponry and future attack plan, sources said.
Although Yazbik was not captured in the attack, sources said he might have been wounded in the invasion.
The captured Hezbollah officials were identified as Hussein Nasrallah, Hussein al-Burji and Ahmed al-Ghotah. The captured Hussein Nasrallah has the same last name as Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
The ferocious battle that raged on in Baalbek – and throughout pockets of southern Lebanon – yesterday quelled expectations for a cease-fire, although U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said an agreement on how to end the conflict was possible within the next few days, not weeks.
Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal, said that Israeli soldiers had landed near the Dar al-Hikma Hospital in Baalbek, about 10 miles from Lebanon’s border with Syria.
“A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter,” Rahal said. “They entered the hospital and are trapped inside as our fighters opened fire on them, and fierce fighting is still raging.”
After the fight, Hezbollah admitted that some people had been seized from the hospital, but denied they were fighters.
“Those who were taken prisoner are citizens. It will not be long before the [Israeli] enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Witnesses said the fierce battle around the hospital included Israeli soldiers firing assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machine guns at Hezbollah guerillas.
Israeli helicopters joined the battle, firing rockets at several targets near and around the hospital.
Fighting between Israeli commandos and Hezbollah guerrillas continued for more than four hours, intensifying when Israeli warplanes dropped flares over the city, witnesses said.
Israeli jets staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek.
At least 11 civilians were killed and two wounded in the massive air strike on a nearby village, Lebanese officials said.
They said warplanes bombarded the village of Jammaliyeh during the battle, destroying several homes in the process.
Witnesses said the hospital was later hit in an Israeli airstrike and was seen burning when the fighting ended at 4 a.m.
Residents said the Dar al-Hikma hospital is financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hezbollah.
The last time Israeli soldiers were known to have gone so far on the ground into Lebanon was in 1994, when they abducted Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about a missing Israeli airman named Ron Arad.
Dirani was released in a prisoner exchange 10 years later.
Israeli officials indicated the long-delayed ground offensive – which included some 10,000 soldiers – was designed to clear the area of terrorists until a cease-fire is declared and an international peacekeeping force arrives.
Despite mounting civilian deaths, President Bush continued his support of Israel and was pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire with a broader plan for peace in the Mideast.
Staking out a different approach, European Union ministers called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” followed by efforts to agree on a sustainable cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the first time spoke of a truce yesterday, saying, “We are at the beginning of a political process that in the end will bring a cease-fire.”
But in Washington, his deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, said last night that Israel’s military campaign could go on for weeks, despite international pressure.
In other developments:
* Israel resumed partial airstrikes yesterday – breaking its self-imposed 48-hour cease-fire – in a bid to push Hezbollah far enough north into Lebanon so that most of the guerrillas’ rockets will not be able to cross the border.
The strikes exclusively targeted Hezbollah strongholds and supply lines from one end of Lebanon to the other – despite Israel’s pledge to suspend such attacks for another day in response to world outrage over the killing of 56 Lebanese citizens, including 37 children, in a weekend bombing on Qana.
Israel said it would resume full airstrikes this morning.
* The bloodiest battle of the war erupted yesterday in Aita a-Shaab, a Hezbollah stronghold less than a mile inside the Lebanese border.
Israel said three of its paratroopers and at least 10 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the town, from which guerrillas launched the cross-border raid that triggered the war three weeks ago.
Another 25 Israelis were wounded in the attacks, Israeli officials said.
* Israel launched a broad land assault on several towns across the border.
“We have so far now about six efforts running inside Lebanon . . . brigade-size or even bigger than brigade-size efforts in each one of them,” said Brigadier Gen. Shuki Shahur.
An Israeli brigade usually numbers at least 1,000 soldiers.
* Israeli officials said 400 Hezbollah members had been killed and the group’s headquarters destroyed.
* Terrorist rockets and mortar fire fell on several northern Israeli towns, including an empty kindergarten. No casualties were reported.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks into Israel diminished greatly. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border yesterday and two this morning.
* Israel temporarily lifted its naval blockade of the Lebanese coast to let in two oil tankers to supply Lebanon’s fuel-starved power plants, according to Lebanon’s minister of transportation, Mohammed Safadi.
The easing of the blockade came only 24 hours before the plants’ supply would have been exhausted.
With Post Wire Services
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Map graphic
* Aita a-Shaab, Lebanon – Pitched battle kills at least 3 Israeli paratroopers and 10 Hezbollah fighters
* Sidon, Lebanon – Three Lebanese killed in airstrike
* Baalbek, Lebanon – Israeli commandos raid hospital and capture three Hezbollah fighters
* Taibeh, Lebanon – Israelis seize Hezbollah command center
* Matzuva, Nahariya and Shlomi, Israel – Hit by Hezbollah rockets
* Proposed buffer zone
Battle of Baalbek
* Israeli commandos storm a Hezbollahrun hospital in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, located some 80 miles north of the Israeli border.
* The four-hour raid ends in the capture of three Hezbollah guerillas, who are taken to Israel.
* A ferocious battle takes place around the Dar al-Hikma Hospital, including Israeli soldiers firing assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machine guns at Hezbollah guerillas.
* Israeli helicopters join the fight, firing rockets at several targets near and around the hospital.
* Fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas continues for more than four hours, intensifying when Israeli warplanes drop flares over the city.
* Israeli jets stage more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital, as well as on hills in east and north Baalbek. At least 10 civilians are killed and two wounded in the airstrikes.
* The hospital is later hit by an Israeli airstrike and burned to the ground.