Israeli commandos snatched at least three suspected Hezbollah members from the ancient city of Baalbek, deep inside Lebanon, on Wednesday in a raid backed by air strikes that killed at least 12 civilians.
Israeli soldiers landed from helicopters near a Hezbollah-run hospital near Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley, captured several Hezbollah members and took them to Israel, the Israeli army said.
”During the night, [Israeli] forces operated in the town of Baalbek,” an Israeli army spokesperson said. ”A number of terrorists were also arrested and taken to Israel.”
She said the troops had returned safely to Israel. It was the first helicopter-borne assault far from the border since Israel’s war with Hezbollah began three weeks ago.
Lebanese security sources said at least three low-ranking members of the Shi’ite Islamist group were seized in the raid. But Hezbollah denied they belonged to the group.
At least 11 civilians were killed when Israeli air strikes hit the village of Jammaliyeh near Baalbek. Security sources said five family members were found dead in the rubble of their house. Six other villagers were killed and two wounded. One civilian was killed by an air strike in Hermel to the north.
Israel’s security Cabinet has also ordered a ground sweep up to 7km into Lebanon, a political source said. Israel is seeking to damage Hezbollah as much as it can before diplomacy can end the war sparked when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. At least 636 people in Lebanon and 54 Israelis have been killed.
‘Talking about days not weeks’
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ceasefire could be reached within days. ”This week is entirely possible. Certainly we are talking about days not weeks,” she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also spoke of a political process that would lead to a ceasefire ”under entirely different conditions than before” now that Hezbollah had suffered what he said were heavy losses. He did not mention any time-frame.
Israel says it will not stop fighting until an international force is in place in southern Lebanon. Israeli leaders believe they have at least another week to attack Hezbollah before major powers settle terms for a ceasefire and stabilisation force.
Security sources said Israeli troops attacked al-Hikmah hospital just south of Baalbek. One source said senior Hezbollah official Mohammad Yazbik could have been the target of the raid.
Another unit was dropped in the outskirts of Baalbek.
Fierce fighting with assault rifles, grenade-launchers and machineguns raged around the hospital for four hours, witnesses said. Israeli helicopters rained rockets and heavy machinegun fire at targets near the hospital and other spots in the city.
After the commandos withdrew, warplanes destroyed the three-storey hospital, which had been evacuated of wounded Hezbollah and civilian patients before the Israeli raid.
Israeli aircraft also wrecked at least three bridges in the northern tip of the Bekaa and in northern Lebanon.
Hezbollah fighters killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded 30 in fighting on several fronts in south Lebanon on Tuesday.
”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,” Israeli Brigadier General Shuki Shahur said. An Israeli brigade usually has at least 1 000 soldiers.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan urged major powers to patch up differences on the crisis and rescheduled a meeting of potential contributors to an international force for Thursday.
European Union foreign ministers called for an immediate end to hostilities, watering down demands for an immediate ceasefire at the insistence of Britain and other close US allies.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Syria and Iran, both Hezbollah allies, they risked confrontation if they continued to ”support terrorism and export instability”.
Israel’s justice minister said about 300 of an estimated 2 000 Hezbollah fighters had been killed so far, and the tourism minister later said 400 had been killed.
Hezbollah, which says it does not hide its dead and that it has many thousands more fighters, has announced 43 deaths during the conflict. It has denied Israeli assertions about its losses.
Israel wants to push Hezbollah back and stop it firing rockets over the border. But an Israeli minister said there was no way Israel’s forces could destroy all the missiles, a remark apparently aimed at lowering the Israeli public’s expectations. – Reuters