BAALBEK - Israeli commandos swooped deep inside Lebanon in a night helicopter raid near the town of Baalbek Wednesday, seizing five men they alleged were Hezbollah militants and killing 16 civilians, including seven children.
Venturing deep into central Lebanon close to the Syrian border, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Israel, the forces landed after midnight and attacked a hospital run by Hezbollah just outside the city, sparking firece clashes.
The operation on the eastern town of Baalbek, a Hezbollah bastion 10 kilometres from the Syrian border, followed an intensive Israeli air bombardment of the area, police said.
The raid was the most northerly ground attack by Israeli forces since the start of the crisis on July 12, and coincided with regular Israeli army units stepping up operations in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah positions.
"We have carried out this operation to prove that we can hit everywhere in Lebanon," Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz said.
He said that "during the Baalbek operation special forces captured five members of Hezbollah while more than 10 others were hit." Hezbollah did not confirm any casualties among its ranks.
Sixteen civilians, including seven children, were killed and 20 wounded in the Israeli raids, hospital sources said. Five Lebanese men were captured and taken into Israel by the commando team, police said.
Lebanese police gave the names of the five captured civilians as Hassan Dib Nasrallah, Bilal Hassan Nasrallah, Ahmad Auta, Hassan Burji and Hussein Shokr.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that during the raid "several members of Hezbollah were hit while others have been taken prisoner and brought back to Israel." She said all the Israeli troops involved in the raid had returned to their base.
But a Hezbollah statement said "the Islamic Resistance announces that it has foiled an Israeli landing operation in Baalbek and denies that the enemy had captured any of its members," saying instead that civilians had been abducted.
The raids, which mainly targeted a hospital at the northern entrance of Baalbek, the site of a world famous complex of Roman temples, met heavy resistance from Hezbollah gunmen, police said.
Gunships hovering at low altitude tried to land on hilltops overlooking Baalbek, a main Hezbollah stronghold, but faced fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas who opened up with anti-aircraft batteries, they said.
One helicopter landed for a few moments on Ain Jawzeh hill, east of Baalbek, but was forced to flee because of intense Hezbollah fire.
A spokesman for the Shiite militia said earlier that the Israeli special forces were surrounded in the hospital for over an hour.
Witnesses told AFP that an Israeli helicopter had dropped the commandos at the Dar Al-Hekmah hospital before it was forced to clear the area because of Hezbollah fire. The gunship then headed to a nearby wheatfield to await the end of the commando operation.
Parallel to the battles on the ground and in the air, a war of rumors was also raging.
Israeli voice messages received in Lebanon said "the courageous" operation was meant to "save our (two) soldiers" who were captured by Hezbollah on July 12. The capture triggered the massive Israeli onslaught on its northern neighbour.
Hezbollah sources said the group had lured the Israelis by spreading rumours about the presence of an important Hezbollah figure in the hospital, which had been emptied of patients, doctors and staff since the start of the offensive.
They said the group also sent several convoys into the hospital in the last few days, including the personal car of Sheikh Mohamad Yazbek, member of the Hezbollah Shura consultative council and representative in Lebanon of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But Halutz denied that "the goal of the operation was to seize a particular Hezbollah leader."
08/02/2006 12:29 GMT