Israeli Soldiers Expected Lesser Foe

There was a flash and a jolt that threw him to the ground. Trembling, he crawled to safety, shouting every curse he could think of. He was unhurt but so shaken that the words came out in sputters.

"I was really freaked out," Gelnik recalled. A nearby soldier who was traumatized by the blast now hears whistling noises that aren't there; he won't be returning to Lebanon.

Gelnik, 20, is one of thousands of Israeli soldiers who have spent the last six days seizing villages in southern Lebanon. Exhausted, their equipment caked in dirt and sweat, several hundred with the Nahal brigade marched back into Israel on Saturday for a respite. Most are expected to return to Lebanon within a day or so.

With Israel's offensive dragging into its fourth week, many of these soldiers say they are encountering in Hezbollah an enemy more formidable than any they have fought in recent years.

And to hear some of them describe it, the ground war is not going quite as they expected. It is a slow, tough slog that has failed to stop Hezbollah rocket fire from scorching northern Israel.

They expressed frustration that Hezbollah fighters mingled with the civilian population, making them harder to find and root out.

Several Israelis also complained of weak supply lines that left their platoons low on food and without water in their last hours in Lebanon. One medic told of testing local water for poison because their own supply was gone.

Gelnik's unit walked all night to reach the village of Adessa, just a few miles over the border, and found a virtual ghost town. Street by street, they moved into position, taking over several old stone houses and girding for the Hezbollah attacks that would come.

"In the distance, you see the red lights and white flashes," said Ron Evan, 21. "Then you hear the rockets, phooofff, phooofff. I was thinking 'Oh my God.' Then you feel the air waves, like a big shock."

Hezbollah, the soldiers said, mostly attacked from a distance, using rockets and sniper fire.

The soldiers said they found weapons stockpiled in some of the homes they seized. Overall, they said, they found Hezbollah to be a much more effective fighting force than the Palestinian militants they were more accustomed to confronting.