Deadliest Day for Israel in Lebanon

The most intense combat took place about an hour later, in a cluster of hilltop communities in Lebanon where Israeli troops have taken the bulk of their casualties.

Israeli troops had been told by intelligence officers to expect a Hezbollah force of 30 to 50 fighters, according to Golan, but the group more than doubled its strength under the cover of darkness.

Adam, the head of the Northern Command, said that soldiers had taken up strategic positions overlooking the town of Bint Jbeil, but had only made brief raids inside it until Wednesday at 5 a.m., when soldiers began moving in on foot. That account seemed to contradict another general's statement a day earlier that the town was under "total control."

The advancing soldiers were pinned down for nearly an hour inside abandoned buildings before they could effectively return fire, Golan said.

It took until early afternoon to carry the dead and wounded more than a mile, often under heavy fire, to a site where tanks could transport them to a waiting helicopter for evacuation, commanders said.

Lebanese residents fleeing Bint Jbeil described a panorama of destruction in the largely deserted town, which Hezbollah has long celebrated as "the city of resistance" for its role in the group's fight against Israeli troops in the 1990s.

Roads into the town were bombed, and every store was shuttered. There was no gasoline for cars, and trips out of town cost hundreds of dollars.

Hezbollah militiamen were turning away refugees, instructing them to head instead to Tibnin, where more than 1,350 had gathered in a hospital, said Hassan Deeb Hassan, an 87-year-old resident of the nearby town of Ainata. "No one can walk in the street, no one can get out of the way of the bombing," he said. "I've seen many wars in my lifetime, but I've never seen anything like this."

Cody reported from Beirut. Correspondents Scott Wilson and John Ward Anderson in Jerusalem and Anthony Shadid in Tyre, and staff writer Josh White in Washington contributed to this report.