TYRE - Israeli naval commandos landed in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre Saturday, storming an apartment block and killing three Hezbollah militants in fierce clashes before returning to Israel.
The operation, the second such raid this week, came as Israel launched its heaviest bombardment of southern Lebanon since its offensive began, carrying out 250 air raids and firing some 4,000 shells into the region.
The Israeli military said it killed three Hezbollah militants in the night-time raid and that eight of its soldiers were wounded. Two of them, including an officer, were seriously hurt.
"Guided by very precise intelligence, navy commandos entered an apartment on the second floor of a five-story building in the north of Tyre, where they killed at least three Hezbollah leaders," an Israeli naval commander said.
"There were point-blank exchanges of fire and grenades were thrown inside the apartment and two of our troops were seriously wounded," he said.
The commander said the three dead were behind the firing of a missile late Friday on the Israeli town of Hadera, some 75 kilometres (45 miles) from the frontier, the deepest strike into the Jewish state of the present conflict.
"Our commandos were able to retreat and to hit with counterstrikes six to eight terrorists from neighboring buildings, killing some of them, and to return to Israel with aviation support," he said.
A Lebanese soldier was killed after his unit opened fire on the Israeli helicopters, police said.
Two civilians were also killed when Israeli air raids hit their scooter, on a road east of Tyre, police said.
A witness close to Hezbollah, who declined to be named, told AFP an Israeli helicopter landed at Jall al-Bahr, an area of orchards at Tyre's northern entrance, and fell straight into a Hezbollah "ambush".
"A member of the commando group was killed and three others wounded," said the source, who added that the soldiers left a trail of blood in their wake as they made their escape through a hole in a fence.
It was the first time in the conflict that Israeli troops had landed in the southern port city, but the raid came days after a similar helicopter-borne operation near the eastern city of Baalbek resulted in the capture of five alleged militants.
Police said the helicopters fired four missiles at Tyre's northern entrance, provoking a barrage of anti-aircraft fire.
A large number of helicopters had roared over Tyre before dawn, strafing all routes into the city.
Residents said the exchanges sparked panic. A clinic north of the city said it was forced to move its patients for their own safety.
"It was a real battle," a doctor said.
The barrage of raids over south Lebanon Saturday lasted for seven hours from dawn. The worst-hit region was around the village of Aitaroun, which was hit by 2,000 shells.
Sixteen civilians were wounded in villages in the Tyre region after the air strikes, Lebanese police sources said.
Eight residents of Zawtar were also wounded in the intense bombardment aimed at villages by the Litani river, south east of Sidon.
Another five were wounded when their car was struck by Israeli missiles as they were fleeing Zawtar, police said.
Eight civilians were injured a Kfar Kila, a village in the central sector of the border, and two others in Kfarfila, east of Sidon by Israeli air raids, police added.
Police said 15 villages some five kilometres (three miles) from the border were being systematically destroyed by the bombardments, which come after Israel vowed to create a security zone free of Hezbollah fighters.
According to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), exchanges of fire continued with high intensity in the past 24 hours in the south close to the border.
"Hezbollah fired rockets from various locations in large numbers. The IDF continued intensive shelling and aerial bombardment across the south," a statement said Saturday.
Firing came close to UNIFIL positions from the Israeli side and from Hezbollah.
"UNIFIL strongly protested all these incidents to the Israeli and Lebanese authorities respectively."
Fourteen people were wounded, with more casualties only avoided because villagers had largely fled in the face of persistent Israeli fire.
Israeli troops have advanced from at least seven points on the border to establish a border buffer zone that General Udi Adam, chief of Israel's northern command, said is now up to 10 kilometres (six miles) deep.
"On the 25th day of our offensive, we control in south Lebanon a zone of five to eight, even 10 kilometers (three, five, six miles)," the general said.
In fighting around the village of Taibeh, not far from the border, one soldier was killed and another lightly wounded, an army spokesman in Tel Aviv said.
Israeli warplanes also carried out pre-dawn attacks for a third straight night against Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah bastion, killing three Sudanese workers.
Fighter-bombers struck the area six times, police said, without immediately being able to give details of the targets.
As daylight broke, flames were still visible from the area which was covered in a thick pall of black smoke.

08/05/2006 17:26 GMT