MISGAV AM, Israel – As many as 10,000 Israeli troops backed by armor advanced deeper into Lebanon on Tuesday, crossing the Litani River. Early today, Israeli helicopters dropped commandos at a Hezbollah-run hospital in Baalbek, 10 miles from the Syrian border, and fought a fierce battle with guerrillas.
Clashing repeatedly elsewhere with Hezbollah guerrillas and pounding southern Lebanese villages with renewed air strikes, the Israelis undertook the broad ground push as a 48-hour slowdown in air attacks ended early today.
“Every additional day (of fighting) is a day that erodes the power of this cruel enemy,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday evening. “Every additional day, the Israeli army reduces their ability to fire, and also their ability to strike in the future.”
Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets into Israel on Tuesday, well below an average of about 100 a day since fighting began.
Israeli infantry crossed the Litani River in several spots and reached the northern edge of what Israel held as a buffer zone for 18 years until withdrawing in 2000, said Brig. Gen. Shuki Shihrur, deputy commander of the Israeli army’s northern command.
The goal of the ground offensive was not to conquer towns but to work southward from the river to clear Hezbollah from the border and weaken the group before any international peacekeeping force could be deployed in southern Lebanon, Shihrur said.
Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litan and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force comes ashore.
But the army later said it had distributed leaflets northeast of the river at villages where Hezbollah was active. The leaflets told people to leave, suggesting that the new offensive could take Israeli soldiers even deeper into Lebanon.
In Baalbek, helicopters ferried in Israeli special forces near Dar al-Hikma Hospital, according to Lebanese security sources. The Israelis were apparently seeking to capture a Hezbollah commander or free an Israeli soldier they believe was being held captive there.
By early this morning, Israeli warplanes had staged more than 10 bombing runs around the hospital as well as on nearby hills. Witnesses said the hospital had been hit and was burning.
“A group of Israeli commandos was brought to the hospital by a helicopter. They entered the hospital and are trapped inside as our fighters opened fire on them, and fierce fighting is still raging,” a Hezbollah spokesman said early in the operation.
He dismissed as “untrue” reports that the Israeli commandos managed to snatch some patients from the hospital and spirit them away in helicopters.
But hours later, the Israeli military said the raid ended with all its soldiers returning unharmed to their base. The military also said commandos had captured some guerrillas, but gave no further details.
The raid in Baalbek, once a Syrian army headquarters 80 miles north of Israel, was the deepest ground attack on Lebanon since fighting began 21 days ago.
Associated Press
Israeli soldiers from a combat engineer unit walk along a road crossing back from the Lebanese side of the border near the northern Israel town of Metulla after early Tuesday morning operations.
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