ISRAEL: Israeli soldiers fighting battles with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon being evacuated from border

Record ID: 396182

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli soldiers fighting battles with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon being evacuated from border
  • Date: 6th August 2006
  • Summary: CIVILIAN AMBULANCE DRIVING AWAY
  • Embargoed: 21st August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVAEXZ2MJH396MAC6762SBP373B6
  • Story Text: Israeli troops wounded in battles with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon were brought to a hospital in northern Israel on Saturday (August 5).
    Fierce fighting is ongoing in the southern Lebanese town of Aite al-Shaeeb between Israeli ground troops and Hizbollah guerillas.
    Elite Israeli naval commandos fought gun and grenade battles with Hizbollah guerrillas in and around an apartment building near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre overnight, an Israeli officer said on Saturday.
    The officer and the Israeli army refused to say how the commandos reached the apartment building, but Israeli media said they were dropped from helicopters.
    The senior naval officer, who declined to be identified, said eight commandos were wounded, two seriously, in the operation to attack guerrillas suspected of firing long-range missiles at Israel.
    The commandos killed seven Hizbollah fighters in close combat, he said. Hizbollah issued a statement denying seven of its men were killed in what it called a failed raid.
    Earlier this week, Israeli helicopter-borne commandos seized five suspected Hizbollah guerrillas and killed at least four gunmen in a night-time raid at a Hizbollah-run hospital in the ancient city of Baalbek, 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Beirut.
    At least 19 civilians, including four children, died in air strikes that accompanied the Baalbek raid, Lebanese authorities said.
    Lebanon says a million people, a quarter of the population, have been displaced by the war launched after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
    The conflict has killed at least 734 people in Lebanon and 78 Israelis. Hizbollah has fired 2,600 rockets into Israel.
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