“WE HAVE to go. They’re shooting at us,” the Israeli soldier shouted, gesticulating for his men to pull back. “We’re exposed. Everybody needs to leave and go into the bushes. Don’t move in groups. Now go!”

Moments earlier one of his unit’s vehicles had sped down the country lane, its driver yelling that he had almost been hit by a Hezbollah rocket- propelled grenade. With a grinding of gears the country lane filled with Israeli men and materiel moving rapidly away from the border, towards the cover of trees.

Although the Israelis have launched thousands of airstrikes and artillery shells into southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters are still capable of surprising Israeli troops. The exact location of this unit cannot be given because of Israeli military censorship.

Within sight of Israeli roads The Times could see a dozen Hezbollah flags fluttering along a 48km (30-mile) stretch of border from Shtula — near the site of the Islamist group’s initial cross-border raid on July 12 — to Metulla, the location of the Good Fence Border Crossing. Two of the bright yellow banners could still be seen yesterday over Maroun al-Ras, seized by Israel from Hezbollah over the weekend.

Along the same frontier smoke drifted across the hills, emanating from the numerous rockets that Hezbollah fired into Israel, striking Haifa, Nahariya and Shlomi. Thirteen people were wounded slightly.

Another blaze marked the site where an Israeli military helicopter crashed into an electricity pylon near Rehaniya, killing two crew members. Hezbollah claimed to have shot down the helicopter, but Israeli officials said that “it appears more likely to be a technical fault”. The area around Maroun al-Ras has seen the heaviest fighting in recent days as Israeli forces push towards Bint Jbeil, 4km inside Lebanon.

Hezbollah claimed to have hit five tanks there, and the Israeli military confirmed that nine soldiers had been wounded. Two Hezbollah fighters captured on Sunday were taken to Israel.

“We intend to clear out this place to prevent the firing of Katyusha rockets at Israel,” Brigadier-General Miri Regev, an army spokeswoman, said.

At least seven civilians were reported killed in more than 40 Israeli air raids on Lebanon. Several civilians were wounded when Israeli missiles destroyed two Red Cross ambulances on Sunday. Hezbollah acknowledged that three fighters had died.

Security sources in south Lebanon said that the Hezbollah force fighting around Marun al-Ras consisted of 50 well-armed, battle-hardened fighters, almost all with combat experience fighting Israeli occupation forces in the 1990s.

They use caves, bunkers and dugouts in the brush-covered hills to avoid detection by Israeli drones and airstrikes. Using traditional guerrilla tactics of retreating when the enemy advances and pushing ahead when the enemy withdraws, Hezbollah is proving to be an elusive and tenacious adversary. Last week Israeli troops uncovered several anti-tank missiles, Katyusha rockets, rifles and ammunition at the hamlet of Marwahine. The troops withdrew from Marwahine on Friday. “The next morning there were Katyusha rockets being fired from where the Israelis had been,” a security source said.

Sources believe that the Hezbollah cells in the south are using encrypted short-burst radio transmissions to remain in contact with the leadership in Beirut and that the chain of command remains unbroken.

Although the Hezbollah cells remain deployed close to the border, most of the rocket batteries have retreated north.

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