TYRE, Aug 5: Israeli naval commandos landed in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday, storming an apartment block and killing three Hezbollah militants in fierce clashes before returning to Israel.

The operation, the second such raid this week, came as Israel launched its heaviest bombardment of southern Lebanon since its offensive began, carrying out 250 air raids and firing some 4,000 shells into the region.

The Israeli military said it killed three Hezbollah militants in the night-time raid and that eight of its soldiers were wounded. Two of them, including an officer, were seriously hurt.

“Guided by very precise intelligence, navy commandos entered an apartment on the second floor of a five-storey building in the north of Tyre, where they killed at least three Hezbollah leaders,” an Israeli naval commander said.

“There were point-blank exchanges of fire and grenades were thrown inside the apartment and two of our troops were seriously wounded,” he said.

The commander said the three dead were behind the firing of a missile on Friday on the Israeli town of Hadera, some 75 kilometres from the frontier, the deepest strike into the Jewish state of the present conflict.

“Our commandos were able to retreat and to hit with counterstrikes six to eight terrorists from neighbouring buildings, killing some of them, and to return to Israel with aviation support,” he said.

A Lebanese soldier was killed after his unit opened fire on the Israeli helicopters, police said.

Two civilians were also killed when Israeli air raids hit their scooter, on a road east of Tyre.

A witness close to Hezbollah said an Israeli helicopter landed at Jall al-Bahr, an area of orchards at Tyre’s northern entrance, and fell straight into a Hezbollah ‘ambush’.

“A member of the commando group was killed and three others wounded,” said the source, who added that the soldiers left a trail of blood in their wake as they made their escape through a hole in a fence. It was the first time in the conflict that Israeli troops had landed in the city.—AFP