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Israel Conducts Operation in Hospital
// The Middle East conflict
Israeli special forces tried to capture one of the Lebanese leaders of Hezbollah yesterday in Baalbek. Although the Israelis captured five ordinary fighters instead of their target, Sheik Muhammad Yazbek, the operation was called a success. The Israelis say openly that the operation was intended to raise spirits in the country, and to show the militants that they have nowhere to hide.
Dar al-Hikma Hospital on the outskirts of Baalbek has long been on the Israeli list of suspicious objects. According to intelligence reports, it is funded by the Iranian Imam Khomeini Philanthropic Foundation, which has close links to the Lebanese Hezbollah. Israeli intelligence learned some time ago that one of the top 12 Hezbollah leaders, Sheik Yazbek, was being treated at the hospital. According to Hezbollah, the Israelis tried to conduct an operation on Monday night, but were thwarted by the militants and Lebanese army and their helicopters returned to the base.
On Tuesday after 10:00 p.m., Baalbek was subjected to a massive air strike. Witnesses say that more than ten helicopters were involved. The city's electric plant and several Hezbollah objects in the vicinity of the hospital were destroyed. An Israeli force of 20 people was landed. Reports differ as to what happened after that. The Israelis claim that the force quickly took the hospital under its control and, even though they did not find the sheik, they took five Hezbollah fighters captive, killed ten and left safely.
Hezbollah says that Sheik Yazbek had been moved from the hospital and that the Israelis fell into a trap, suffered losses and fled in terror. Lebanese sources claim that the persons captured by the Israelis are not Hezbollah members but civilians being treated at the hospital for wound they received from Israeli attacks.
In response to the raid, Hezbollah made its most massive missile attack on Israel since the conflict began July 12. Mickey Rosenfeld, press secretary of the Israeli police, that 155 rockets had been launched at northern Israel by lunchtime. Nineteen people were injured as a result, none seriously. The militants struck the Israeli city of Beit Shean, 70 km. from the Lebanese border, the farther that a Hezbollah rocket has reached so far.
The Israeli raid on Baalbek was compared in Israel with the raid on Entebbe in 19976, when Israeli special forces freed the passengers of a plane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda.
Alexander Reutov
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 03, 2006
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