The Israelis claimed that helicopter-borne soldiers had seized senior Hizbollah leaders although one of them turned out to be a local Baalbek grocer. In a village near the city, Israeli air strikes killed the local mayor's son and brother and five children in their family.
The battle for Lebanon was fast moving out of control last night. Lebanese troops abandoned many of their checkpoints and European diplomats were warning their colleagues that militiamen were taking over the positions. Up to 8,000 Israeli troops were reported to have crossed the border by last night in what was publicised as a military advance towards the Litani river. But far more soldiers would be needed to secure so large an area of southern Lebanon.
The Israelis sent paratroopers to attack an Iranian-financed hospital in Baalbek in the hope of capturing wounded Hizbollah fighters but, after an hour's battle, got their hands on only five men whom the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, later called "tasty fish". The operation suggests what Hizbollah has all along said was the purpose of the Israeli campaign: to swap prisoners and to exchange Hizbollah fighters for the two Israeli soldiers who were captured on the border on 12 July.
Hizbollah continued to fire dozens of missiles over the border into Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding 21, with Israeli artillery firing shells back into Lebanon at the rate of one every two minutes. For the first time, a Hizbollah rocket struck the West Bank as well as the Israeli town of Beit Shean, the longest-range missile to have been fired so far. Yet still the West seems unable to produce an end to a war which is clearly overwhelming both Hizbollah and the Israelis.
Hizbollah obviously has far more missiles than the Israelis believed - there is not a town in northern Israel which is safe from their fire - and the Israeli army apparently has no plan to defeat Hizbollah other than the old and hopeless policy of occupying southern Lebanon. If Hizbollah had planned this campaign months in advance - and if the Israelis did the same - then neither side left room for diplomacy.