Failed Raid Marks Push in Battle

The failed Israeli commando operation that cost the lives of 12 special forces soldiers in southern Lebanon early Friday was apparently part of a campaign to gain the initiative in the war of attrition against Muslim guerrillas.

The exact target of the 16 commandos who landed north of the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre loaded with explosives was not clear, but the goal seemed to be to go after guerrillas behind the front line rather than wait for them to enter the 9-mile-wide swath of southern Lebanon that Israel occupies.

Israel has launched many offensives since the beginning of the year, including a successful one last month that killed three top fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah. This one was a disaster for Israel.

The commandos, walking under cover of darkness, were surprised with an ambush of explosives and a rain of gunfire from the guerrillas, said Israeli security forces and guerrilla sources. Trapped, the survivors called for air and sea support, and a three-hour gun battle ensued before they could be evacuated under antiaircraft fire from the Lebanese army.

In the end, the bodies of 10 Israeli fighters and a combat doctor were recovered. A 12th soldier, apparently blown apart by his own explosives, was collected in pieces by Hezbollah, which hopes to trade the remains for prisoners in Israel. Four more soldiers were wounded and taken by helicopter to hospitals in northern Israel.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in 20 years,” said Dr. Daniel Moshe, who received the dead and wounded at the Hospital of the Western Galilee in Nahariya.

Two Lebanese civilians also were killed in the clash, and seven guerrillas were wounded.

For Israel, the toll was greater than in any other single firefight since the Jewish state occupied southern Lebanon in 1985. It brings the number of Israeli casualties from the war to more than 100 this year, including those who died in a helicopter crash on the way to Lebanon in February, and is expected to rekindle the debate over the value of continuing the occupation.

An Israeli television poll conducted in the aftermath of the bloody clash Friday showed that 52% of Israelis support the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon. After a clash that left four Israeli soldiers dead last week, opposition Labor leader Ehud Barak said Israel should consider pulling out if a third country, such as the United States, guarantees security at the border.

Israel generally claims that it holds the Lebanese territory only to keep the guerrillas back from the border and prevent them from attacking northern Israeli towns. But Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went further to justify Israeli operations north of the occupied zone.

“As long as there are attacks against us . . . , including declarations of organizations such as Hezbollah that they are fighting an all-out war against the state of Israel itself, we have no choice but to take defensive measures within Lebanon,” Netanyahu said.

Leaders of Hezbollah and the militant Islamic group Amal say they are fighting to oust Israel from Lebanon, although Hezbollah, at least, has declined to say if it has any intention of going on fighting the Israelis if they leave Lebanon.

Hours before the clash, Hani Kobeisi, a top Amal political leader in the south, told reporters beside the Litani River that the fight was over the occupation. “Israel is still occupying our land; we are not occupying their land,” Kobeisi said. “The resistance will stop only when Israel withdraws from Lebanon.”

Hezbollah Secretary General Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has declined to make his group’s long-term intentions as clear. At a news conference in Beirut on Friday, Nasrallah appeared as the victor and, while his aides showed off battlefield trophies, warned Israeli soldiers to leave Lebanon.

“Any town you [Israelis] decide to come to, you will not only find the alert eyes of guerrillas watching you, but bombs planted in the ground, in the walls and in trees,” he said.

Israeli military leaders admitted their losses at a somber news conference in Tel Aviv but defended Israel’s military activity. They declined to reveal the intended target of the commando operation.

Amal leader Nabih Berri, who is also speaker of the Lebanese parliament, asserted that the Israeli commandos had intended to blow up an Amal headquarters in Insariyeh, nine miles south of Sidon.

If that is the case, the attack could have been intended as revenge for the clash with Amal forces last week in which four Israeli soldiers burned to death in a blaze started by mortar fire.

Beirut radio stations speculated that another possible target could have been Sheik Abdul-Amir Kabalan, the deputy spiritual leader of Lebanon’s 1.2 million Shiite Muslims. He has a house in Insariyeh.

Ahmed Baalbeki, an Amal leader in Beirut, said at a news conference there that the Israeli commandos were killed by bombs planted in the area.

Dr. Moshe, at the hospital in Nahariya, seemed to confirm that version, saying that all of the dead and wounded had been hit by shrapnel.

Israelis reacted grimly to losing a dozen of their vaunted special forces a day after Hamas suicide bombers struck again in the heart of Jerusalem.

“This is one of the most difficult days, as our mourning is twofold. In the murderous attack in Jerusalem, we lost the flower of our youth. In Lebanon, we lost 11 of our best fighters,” Netanyahu said, not yet counting the missing in action. “The state of Israel is involved today in a bitter struggle on two fronts.”

In this tit-for-tat war, it is widely expected that Israel will launch another military operation to avenge its losses, probably after the visit to the region next week by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The Lebanese government, fearing a major Israeli reprisal, reportedly asked the United States and France on Friday to intercede with Israel.