Peering through the pre-dawn gloom, Major Roi Klein of the Golani infantry brigade knew that he was in the right place. He could see the minaret towering above the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, near Israel’s border. Behind him his men were creeping towards the stone houses, their faces streaked with green-brown camouflage paint.

Whispers passed down the line as the Israeli infantrymen advanced on a town notorious as a stronghold of Hezbollah guerrillas. The streets were empty. The Islamic militants who had been peppering northern Israel with rocket attacks appeared to have withdrawn.

As they reached the buildings, Klein identified a clinic from the aerial reconnaissance photographs he had studied. Then a blood-freezing scream split the silence: “Allahu akbar” — God is greatest.

The next thing the soldiers heard was the clatter of a hand grenade rolling out of the darkness. Klein shouted “Grenade!” The explosion blew his legs off.

Klein died in the arms of one of his soldiers; it was last Wednesday morning, the day before his 31st birthday.

“All hell broke loose,” said Sergeant Ram Boneh, who was only slightly injured and was later taken to a hospital in Haifa. “There were RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), rifles, hand grenades, from every window and house. We were trapped by at least eight positions around us.”

On a hilltop across the border in Israel, officers with powerful binoculars saw the Hezbollah ambush erupt. “The bastards are alive and kicking,” muttered one. He radioed for assault helicopters to move in.

The day before, five Israeli soldiers had been injured in a “friendly fire” incident involving one of their own helicopter pilots who was trying to give them covering fire. So this time the helicopters fired well clear of their trapped comrades. The volley of rockets failed to dislodge the Hezbollah ambushers.

Hand grenades continued to rain on the Golani soldiers. A fight from house to house developed. Shouts in Hebrew and Arabic mixed with the gunfire. “We took over one house,” said Sergeant Evyatar Dahan, another survivor. “One of us threw in a hand grenade. Then I got a bullet in my shoulder. It came out of my back. I couldn’t carry on and shouted for the medic.”

As the fighting wore on, the Israelis dragged their dead and injured into a house. The Hezbollah fighters were closing in on them. “We could hear them approaching, encouraging each other with shouts in Arabic and then screaming when they were hit by the choppers overhead.”

The battalion commander, Colonel Yaniv Ashor, realised his men would not be able to retreat with their dead and feared the Hezbollah forces would seize the bodies. Three Israelis with severe wounds also needed to be evacuated.

From the command and control position on the Israeli side of the border, the officer in charge called in more Black Hawk helicopters, or Owls, as they called in the Israeli air force. “Heavy fire from the ground,” the Owls squadron leader was overheard to say on radio. “No permission to land.” Ground fire and a barrage of mortar shells aimed at the likely landing site forced the Owls to hold off. Once again the Israelis had to call on greater firepower.

Shortly after midday F-16 fighter jets screamed in at low altitude, firing rockets at the Hezbollah positions. Under cover of the bombardment, 12 soldiers carrying three stretchers raced from their hideout towards the Owls, which had swooped in to hover just above the ground. The soldiers from the “669” rescue team jumped out and hurriedly loaded the injured. Within minutes the choppers were on their way to Rambam hospital in Haifa.

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