Battle for Lebanese town takes its toll

By BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago

The heavy guns thundered before dawn Monday, sending deadly shells crashing down into the Lebanese border town and

paving the way for the advancing Israeli tanks and troops.

By daybreak, bloody and bruised soldiers, shock etched deep in their faces, were streaming back over the border into

Israel.

The incessant crackle of gunfire pierced the air as explosions over the hills surrounding Bint Jbail kicked up plumes of gray

smoke. All the while, tanks rolled back into Israel, ferrying the wounded over the rocky, barren landscape.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and at least 20 were wounded Monday, the army said, as guerrillas in the town, a Hezbollah

stronghold, issued a withering barrage of bullets, anti-tank missiles and mortar shells.

Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, chief of operations for the Israeli Defense Force, said between 100 and 200 Hezbollah fighters

were fortified inside the town, while much of the civilian population had fled. Hezbollah, he said, suffered dozens of

casualties.

As the tanks, doubling up as battlefield ambulances, crossed a breach in the electric border fence, they were met by medics

waiting for the Israeli casualties.

One-by-one the wounded were carried out on stretchers. One young soldier had blood streaming down his leg, which was

bound with a tourniquet. Another lay still on a stretcher, only his twitching legs indicating that he was alive.

Having brought back his wounded comrades, a tank driver sat on the turret clutching his head between his gloved hands and

crying while two crew members tried to console him.

Ambulances rushed the wounded over roads dug up by tank tracks. They drove past fields left charred and barren by fires

from hundreds of Hezbollah rockets and through the empty streets of ghost towns — their inhabitants hiding in bomb

shelters.

Helicopters airlifted the seriously wounded out of the area.

Israel launched its operation in Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas killed three soldiers and captured two others in a

cross-border raid on July 12. More than 350 people in Lebanon and more than 35 Israelis have been killed in the ensuing

fighting.

Those wounded in the battle Monday were rushed to Haifa's Rambam hospital for treatment, some of them straight into

surgery. Their worried friends and relatives sat on the plastic waiting room chairs, impatient for news. Only muted sobs and

an occasional attempt at a joke to break the tension pierced the silence.

"You never think that your brother will be wounded in the army. It is the kind of thing that only happens to other families,"

said Daniel Gino, 19, whose 23-year-old brother was being operated on to remove a bullet from his shin. He declined to give

his brother's name.

In the recovery room, another soldier, 21-year-old Yishai Green, lay in a bed with two large Israeli flags hanging next to

him.

A group of French Jews on a solidarity visit tried to cheer him up with balloons, and another man went from room to room

playing a guitar.

"It's a real mess and I am not allowed to talk about it," was all Green had to say about the battle for Bint Jbail, where much

of the town's population of 30,000 is believed to have fled.

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Associated Press Writer Delphine Matthieussent contributed to this report from Haifa.
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