ISRAELI commandos staged an audacious raid on a suspected Hezbollah hideout near Baalbek to rescue one of their kidnapped soldiers who they believed was being treated at a hospital used by some of the militia’s leaders as a makeshift headquarters.

A dozen figures, their faces masked, ran through the darkened wards of the Dar al- Hekma hospital shouting the name of one of the men whose abduction on July 12 triggered the war. The commandos used shotguns to blast open locked doors, witnesses said yesterday.

Other units were dropped by helicopter at three more sites in an operation to capture one of Israel’s most wanted men, the Hezbollah military commander in the Bekaa Valley.

The Israel Defence Forces claim that they seized five “significant figures” from the Shia militia. Hezbollah and local people insist that they they took the wrong men.

Whatever the success of the mission, this was the farthest the Israelis have ventured into Lebanon, with airborne units hitting targets around Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold 60 miles (96km) northeast of Beirut.

The operation began just after 10.30pm on Tuesday with a ferocious aerial bombardment severing a number of roads that led to suspected Hezbollah safe houses.

Minutes later Apache helicopters could be heard flying low over outlying villages such as al-Jamaliyeh, targeting a number of cars, and at least two houses, as rocket fire lit up the night sky.

Awad Mouri says that he saw two helicopters land in a parched field yards from the modern hospital that is run by an Iranian charity. One group of commandos charged towards the glass-fronted main entrance firing shoulder-held rocket launchers, while another skirted the compound, climbed over a low wall and shot their way through a back door, hurling in stun grenades.

Mr Mouri, 42, a caretaker, said that Israeli forces systematically searched every room, taking away a number of documents. “They were clearly looking for something specific,” he said, adding that the hospital had been evacuated earlier in the week. Upstairs in the CT scan room and two adjoining offices there was evidence that a number of people had been sleeping rough.

Two bombed-out vehicles in the car park were still smouldering 12 hours after the attack. The ground was littered with empty shell casings from Israeli assault rifles, evidence of what locals say was a five-hour gunfight.

A hundred yards from the hospital a bomb had punched a hole in the roof of a home, killing the five people inside. They were believed to be Hezbollah gunmen who ambushed the Israeli commandos as they retreated. Three Hezbollah supporters yesterday scooped up the hardware left behind.

Another target was the home of the mayor of al-Jamaliyeh, Hussein Jamaleddin. His son Ali, 17, and brother, Awad, 60, were killed along with three relatives. Mr Jamaleddin denied that his family were linked to Hezbollah, as he helped to load the corpses into the shovel of a mechanical digger for the short journey to the cemetery.

Seventeen villagers died, but none was on Israel’s “death list” of Hezbollah commanders. Their main target was Hassan Nasrallah, who shares a name with, but is no relation to, the leader of Hezbollah. He controls the east of Lebanon.

One of the five men taken away by Israeli troops has that name, but local people insist that the man owns a grocery shop and is a cousin of the military commander. The man’s 17-year-old son, Bilal, and three other relatives were also flown across the border for interrogation. The Israeli army has yet to reveal their identities.

The commandos reportedly freed one captive— the 13-year-old son of the man who the Israelis believe is Hezbollah’s military chief — as they boarded their helicopters.

The assault on the Dar al- Hekma hospital will bolster Israel’s argument that Hezbollah fighters use medical facilities to shelter themselves and their weapons, though there was no evidence of any arsenal.

The victims of Sunday’s Israeli air strike on the village of Qana, just south of Tyre, were buried yesterday.

Early today Israel renewed air strikes against Hezbollah strongholds in Dahieh, a Shia Muslim suburb of south Beirut. Israeli troops moved back into southern Gaza, closing off the entrance to the town of Rafah.

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