Israeli officials yesterday predicted at least a month of fighting ahead in southern Lebanon as troops launched search-and.destroy missions to root out a massive network of Hezbollah bunkers. The grim assessment came as the Israeli Army wrested control of a key town in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah continued raining dozens of rockets onto Haifa and other northern Israeli towns.Israeli officials told the Daily News that troops who entered Lebanon were surprised to find sophisticated and well-camouflaged bunkers dug by Hezbollah to hide fighters, rocket launchers and weapons caches. The army first confronted the bunker complexes when commandos stumbled across a metal door in the Lebanese village of Marun e-Ras, less than a mile from the border.
As many as 2,000 Israeli troops surged across the border yesterday hunting for similar bunkers, and to take control of Marun e-Ras and its high vantage point on the region. Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz said six elite Israeli troops were killed in the fighting along with dozens of Hezbollah fighters. The army also reported yesterday it recovered the body of a missing soldier. "It's a complicated operation," said Gal Hirsh, an Israeli Army commander. "It's much more than a small force operating in Lebanon."