Eight Israelis die in heaviest day of losses

ISRAEL yesterday suffered its heaviest losses in Lebanon in its offensive against Hezbollah, with militants killing eight soldiers in a battle for a key town.

A top Israeli commander said he expected the campaign to last “several more weeks”.

With Israel facing fiercer than expected resistance in its campaign against the Islamic militants, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel wants to establish a 2km-wide strip in south Lebanon that will be free of Hezbollah guerrillas — ruling out a larger occupation.

Major General Udi Adam, the chief of Israel’s northern command, said: “I assume it will continue for several more weeks, and in a number of weeks we will be able to [declare] a victory,” he said at a news conference.

Hezbollah fighters battled to stop Israeli forces from capturing the town of Bint Jbail in the heaviest fighting of Israel’s two-week offensive in Lebanon.

Fierce fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in the key town of Bint Jbail killed eight Israeli soldiers and wounded 22 others, the Israeli army said.

Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal and Al-Jazeera gave a different toll, saying 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in the town.

Another Arab broadcaster, Al-Arabiya, reported as many as 14 had been killed.

By either measure, it was the deadliest day in Lebanon for Israel since the fighting began July 12. On that day, Hezbollah forces crossed the border into Israel, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Five more Israelis were killed in Lebanon when they pursued the militants across the frontier.

Several other Israeli casualties were reported in fighting in the nearby town of Maroun al-Ras, the military said, without elaborating. Hezbollah later said its fighters killed a four-member Israeli intelligence unit operating between Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras, a border town captured by Israeli forces over the weekend.

Hezbollah said Israeli forces were trying to advance toward a hospital in Bint Jbail. Israeli forces had managed to seize a few points inside the town, but not yet its centre, senior Hezbollah official Mahmoud Komati said.

The Israeli army said several Hezbollah fighters took cover in a mosque.

Komati denied the allegation and suggested those inside were civilians, while Rahhal said they could be fighters who were praying.

Militants fired one of their largest barrages into northern Israel — 119 rockets that wounded at least 31 people and damaged property. The volleys came despite two weeks of Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah rocket launchers and positions.

Israeli warplanes staged 15 airstrikes in southern Lebanon. An evening strike levelled an empty six-storey building in the southern port city of Tyre, security officials and witnesses reported.

One person was killed in a strike that destroyed the headquarters of the Shi’ite Amal movement in the town of Zefta, officials said.

At least 422 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry. Up to 750,000 Lebanese have been driven from their homes. At least 50 Israelis have been confirmed killed, including 32 troops, according to authorities.

The town of Bint Jbail has great symbolic importance for the Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas. It is the largest Shi’ite community in the border area, although most of its 30,000 residents are believed to have fled, and was known as the “capital of the resistance” during Israel’s 1982-90 occupation because of its support for Hezbollah.

An Israeli seizure of the town, about two-and-a-half miles from the border, would rob Hezbollah of a significant refuge overlooking northern Israel and force its fighters to operate from smaller, more vulnerable villages. The town is in a tiny pocket of about six square miles where significant Israeli ground forces have entered southern Lebanon.

About 100 foreigners — mostly Americans — who had been visiting relatives in the village of Yaroun fled to Tyre, and described a village ravaged by bombardment.

“It was worse than a nightmare. I saw dogs and cats on bodies that couldn’t be taken from bombed-out houses. We ran from one building to another trying to escape the bombing,” said Ali Abbas Tehfi from Los Angeles.