Israel Suffers Painful Loss In Lebanon Raid Muslim Guerrillas Turn Tables On Commandos, Kill 11 In Israel’s Worst Defeat In Years

Gloating over the deaths of 11 Israeli soldiers killed in a commando raid into Lebanon, Shiite Muslim guerrillas showed off mutilated Israeli bodies Friday and called the battle a grave defeat for Israel.

In Tel Aviv, Israel’s chief of staff said the military was “in pain” after its greatest combat loss in Lebanon in more than a dozen years.

A 12th Israeli soldier was missing and presumed dead. Four others were wounded when the commandos came ashore early Friday 30 miles north of the Israeli border - well outside Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon - and were met by Hezbollah militiamen and Lebanese army soldiers.

Israeli warplanes, helicopter gunships and a gunboat joined the battle in a rescue attempt after the predawn raid by the elite Navy Seals went awry, said Lebanese security officials, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.

A Lebanese woman and a baby were killed, and six other Lebanese civilians were wounded near the hilltop village of Insariyeh, about halfway between the southern ports of Sidon and Tyre. Six Lebanese guerrillas and a soldier were wounded.

Hours later, the battlefield was clouded with smoke from smoldering bushes. Nearby a 35-year-old woman lay dead in a BMW sedan, whose wounded driver had been taken to a hospital.

One guerrilla held up the head of a dead Israeli for photographers before a Lebanese soldier intervened. At a news conference in Beirut, the Hezbollah militia displayed parts of the dead Israelis, along with captured submachine guns, detonators and swimming flippers.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government was considering trading Hezbollah prisoners for the body of the missing Israeli soldier.

“We see every soldier … as something precious, as part of our flesh that we have to provide a burial for in Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, warned Israel would encounter more roadside bombs and gunfire if it again attacks outside its occupation zone in the south.

“What happened … was a grave defeat for Israel and a major moral and human loss for Israel’s military establishment,” Nasrallah told a news conference in Beirut.

The raid was like scores of commando forays Israeli elite forces have made into Lebanon over the past 30 years. This time, however, the casualties were greater than in any combat action since Israel set up its occupation zone in 1985 to protect its northern border.

“The (army) is in pain. It suffers with the families who lost their loved ones,” Lt. Gen. Amnon Shahak, the Israeli military chief of staff, told reporters in Tel Aviv.

Shahak said the raiders planned to attack a “terror target” but were met with roadside bombs and automatic weapons fire. Military analysts suggested the Israelis may have planned to ambush a guerrilla motorcade.

The death toll was likely to increase demands by some Israelis for a withdrawal from the 10 percent of Lebanon that Israel holds. But Netanyahu said the army would remain in southern Lebanon until Israel’s northern border is secure.

“Lebanon was next to the fence,” Netanyahu told Israel TV. “If we leave Lebanon without the necessary arrangements, Lebanon will attack us and it can hit us very deeply inside Israel.”

In Beirut, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri urged the U.S. and French governments to help prevent the Israeli retaliation that usually follows guerrilla attacks. He said more violence would only add to the pain south Lebanon has suffered for decades.

“The solution lies with a political rather than a military option,” Hariri said.

Israel’s commando raids in Lebanon stretch back to 1968, when it blew up 13 empty civilian airliners at Beirut airport in reprisal for a Palestinian attack on an Israeli passenger plane in Athens.

Over the years, Israel commando raids in Lebanon also have killed a Hezbollah leader and kidnapped two others, who remain in Israeli jails.