Israeli warplanes struck dozens of targets throughout Lebanon into the early morning hours today, and an Israeli commando raid in Tyre turned into a fierce gun battle. The aerial bombardment was particularly heavy in the southern port city of Tyre, where journalists could hear jet fighters, helicopters, the boom of bombs and the rattle of heavy machine-gun fire in the darkness. Helicopter gunships raked the streets leading into the city All told, the Israeli military said, its aircraft struck at 70 targets in Lebanon overnight, from Tyre in the southwest to the Hermel, at the upper end of the Bekaa Valley to the northeast, where they bombed a road leading to the Syrian city of Homs.By late this afternoon, about 40 rockets had been fired into Israel, the police said, with one large cluster of about a dozen hitting Haifa. There were no serious casualties.
The air attack raging around Tyre for much of the night appeared to be cover for a raid by Israeli naval commandos on a four-room apartment used by Hezbollah guerrillas, leading to some of the most intense face-to-face fighting of the war so far. While details were still sketchy, and the accounts from both sides differed, it appeared the commandos landed by helicopter near an orange grove around 3 a.m. and crept up to the apartment, cutting their way through a chain link fence to reach it. Afterward, bloodstains on a wall and a parking lot indicated at least two mortal struggles, with bullet holes pocking the walls near the deep red marks.