Battle of Maroun al - Ras The Battle of Maroun al - Ras was a battle of the 2006 Lebanon War that took place in Maroun ar - Ras , a small village in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel , and Jall ad - Dayr , a nearby Hizbullah stronghold . This battle was the first serious ground battle in the 2006 Lebanon war . It was fought to a large extent by elite forces on both sides and would have huge consequences for the future of the war . The clash at the " Nature Reserve " . There are two different Israeli versions about how the battle of Maroun ar - Ras actually started . According to Gal Hirsch , commander of the 91st Division , a unit of 18 soldiers from the elite Maglan Special Forces were sent out to occupy a Hizbullah position on mount Jall ad - Dayr , from which the nearby Israeli village of Avivim had been shelled , as well as the small nearby village of Maroun ar - Ras . If that version is true it would seem that the IDF had grossly underestimated Hizbullah strength . According to the IDF General Command however , the Maglan unit was on a reconnaissance mission and under strict orders to avoid Hizbullah strongholds or Shiite villages . According to this version the Maglan unit walked into the Hizbullah stronghold by mistake . After a steep climb up the hill on July 19 , the 18 - man squad from the Israeli Maglan Special Forces finally reached the summit next to the village . Suddenly the Israeli soldiers realized that they were surrounded by Hizbullah positions . A violent clash ensued , and two of the Israeli soldiers were killed and nine were injured . For most of the soldiers this was their first encounter with Hizbullah . The commander and several of the remaining unharmed soldiers froze in panic and stopped functioning . Most of the Maglan soldiers had no idea what a Hizbullah Nature Reserve was . Even the IDF officers who ordered the operation thought that it consisted " at most of a cave or bunker " . Paratrooper commander Hagai Mordechai would later admit that it was the Nature Reserves that surprised him most in the early battles . " Nature Reserves " became IDF soldiers ' slang during the war for well - fortified Hizbullah strongholds , situated outside built - up areas in Southern Lebanon . They had well protected firing positions for Katyusha rockets , as well as bunkers and tunnels to protect the fighters , usually elite Special Force from the Nasr Unit ( , Wahdat Nasr ) . It was surrounded by booby traps , mines and had CCTV surveillance . Uzi Mahnaimi labeled them " killing boxes " . Apparently the IDF Staff tried to do away with the term for fear that the IDF would be perceived to cause some ecological damage . The Nature Reserve at Maroun ar - Ras had before the withdrawal in 2000 been an Israeli outpost , code - named " Shaked " . " We didn ’ t know what hit us , " said one of the Maglan soldiers . " In seconds we had two dead . " " We expected a tent and three Kalashnikovs — that was the intelligence we were given . Instead , we found a hydraulic steel door leading to a well - equipped network of tunnels . " The battle of Maroun ar - Ras . The news about the clash at the Nature Reserve came as a shock to the Israeli General Command . A unit of paratroopers was quickly sent as reinforcements to Maroun ar - Ras to help evacuate the entangled Maglan unit . The paratroopers in turn were ambushed when they advanced into the village and likewise appeared to have gotten into serious problems . The paratroopers ' situation would prove not so dramatic , as the paratrooper battalion also sent reinforcements during the night . In the morning of the 20th of July the commander of the elite Egoz Special Forces , Lieutenant Colonel Mordechai Kahana , was summoned to his brigade officer and was ordered to help extricate the supposedly trapped paratroopers . Egoz was created in 1995 specifically for the purpose of fighting Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon . Kahana at first rejected the notion of advancing through open terrain in broad daylight . " This is a suicide mission , " he claimed but in the end he complied . By the end of the day " thousands " of Israeli soldiers were operating in South Lebanon , apparently mainly in and around Maroun ar - Ras . The Israeli soldiers were " searching for tunnels . . . often dug under homes in villages " . An Egoz company attacked a suspicious vehicle , apparently transporting wounded Hizbullah fighters to nearby town Bint Jbeil . The unit was then noticed by Hizbollah units in Bint Jbeil , which attacked the Israelis with a volley of Sagger missiles , killing a senior officer , Major Benjamin Hillman , and two soldiers . Another Egoz company where sent in to evacuate the dead and the wounded but were targeted by another volley of Sagger missiles leading to further casualties . Meanwhile the third company got into a firefight inside the village where another soldier was killed . In total five Egoz soldiers died and six where wounded that day in the fighting . It was the bloodiest day in the unit ' s history . One of the Egoz casualties , Yonatan Vlasyuk , was missing and could not be found until the next day . With the aid of armored units and massive artillery fire the paratroopers succeeded in taking control of most of the village . Israeli artillery fired around 8 , 000 shells on the Nature Reserve and the village on the first two days of battle . Several Hizbullah fighters were killed . The paratroopers discovered a very sophisticated listening post capable of listening on IDF communications , even in the West Bank . News that Maroun ar - Ras had been occupied , however , seemed premature . The fighting would continue for several more days . A tank driver from the 7th Brigade told Jerusalem Post that " many of our tanks took hits , mainly from Sagger rockets ; none of the tanks were destroyed but quite a few of our friends were wounded . " The IDF claimed that Abu Jaafar , the commander of Hizbullah ' s central sector , was killed in an exchange of fire during the battle , which was denied by Hizbullah . Crooke and Perry also deny this claim writing that Abu Jaafar made public comments after the end of the war . However the village commander of the Amal Movement , Hani Alawiya ( Abu Ali ) , was killed in the clashes in Maroun ar - Ras on July 20 . Khalid Bazzi , the commander of the Hizbullah forces in the Bint Jbeil area personally took part in the battle of Maroun ar - Ras . At one point in the battle contact was lost with him at it was feared that he had been killed . He later surfaced unharmed but was killed some days later in an air raid in Bint Jbeil . On the eighth day of the battle the IDF suffered its last fatality in the battle , a paratrooper who was killed by a missile . There are no reports of significant fighting at Maroun ar - Ras in the last two weeks of the war . It is unclear whether Israeli forces eventually succeeded in taking control of the whole village . According to Farquhar the village was still " unsecured " by August 5 . Israel claims that it overheard a general order to retreat towards Bint Jbeil . Crooke and Perry also maintain that Maroun ar - Ras was " never fully taken " . BBC reported a week after the ceasefire came into effect that Israel only occupied the southern side of the village while Hizbullah maintained a " discreet presence " in the other parts of the village . There are no clear indications that the IDF actually took control over the Jall ad - Dayr ( " Shaked " ) Nature Reserve or whether rockets were continued to be fired from this position . According to an account later published in Israel Hayom three soldiers from the Maglan unit eventually stormed the Hizbullah position , killing five Hizbullah fighters and destroying the ' Nature Reserve ' with explosives . This version is not confirmed by other sources . According to the " official Israeli account " 13 Hizbullah fighters were killed in the battle . When the head of the IDF Northern Command Gal Hirsch heard the news he was delighted and informed the Head of Northern Command Adam . Adam was under heavy pressure to present a " victory " and demanded proof in the form of pictures of the dead Hizbullah fighters . The commanders in the field were reluctant to comply , claiming that this would endanger Israeli soldiers . This was probably justified , but shows just how precarious Israeli control of the village was at the time . At the Ministry of Defense there was a widespread suspicion that the claim of 13 killed Hizbullah fighters was just " bragging " . Chief of Staff Dan Halutz ordered all the 13 bodies to be brought to Israel to be shown to the media . Udi Adam and the paratroopers characterized this as a " waste of time " . In the end only six bodies of Hizbullah fighters were carried to Israel on stretchers . No explanation was given what became of the other seven bodies , if they really existed . These six bodies , out of a total of about ten during the entire war ( the remainder apparently from the fighting around Bint Jbeil ) were later returned to Lebanon in the prisoner exchanges in 2007 and 2008 . Other semi - official Israeli estimates claim that 26 Hizbullah fighters died in the battle . According to Hizbullah officials Maroun ar - Ras was only defended by 17 fighters , seven of whom died in the battle . Hirsch had ordered the Military police in Israel to prepare prisoner facilities for 100 prisoners . None were taken in the battle of Maroun ar - Ras . Aftermath . The battle of Maroun ar - Ras became a watershed in the Lebanon war . After realizing that the standing army was not enough to defeat Hizbullah , Israel finally decided on July 22 to call in the reserves . This decision increased the options available to Israel and would eventually lead to the decision at the end of July to commence ground operations . Operation Change of Direction 8 was initiated on July 31 with the aim of taking control of a 6 - 8 kilometer wide " security zone " along the entire Lebanese border , an aim that was never realized . On August 9 Israel launched Operation Changing Direction 11 which aimed at occupying South Lebanon up to the Litani river . At Maroun ar - Ras IDF experienced for the first time sustained Hizbullah attacks with anti - tank rockets and guided missiles and especially the deadly effect of the " swarming " technique . As a member of the Egoz later told : " What can you do when a missile is being fired at you other than say your prayers ? " IDF Northern command banned the introduction of vehicles to Lebanon , with exception of tanks and heavy APC s , such as the Achzarit . This would have a detrimental effect on IDF ' s ability to supply its troops later in the war . The battle at Maroun ar - Ras however showed that not even these heavy armored vehicles were invulnerable to Hizbullah missiles . The must painful lesson that the IDF learnt at Maroun ar - Ras was the deadly effectiveness of Hezbullah " Nature Reserves " . After the battle the head of IDF Northern Command Maj . Gen . Udi Adam forbade any further attacks on Nature Reserves . " A nature reserve can swallow an entire battalion , " he said . This prohibition would remain in force throughout the war and would to a large extent determine the outcome of the war . The well entrenched Nature Reserves were not vulnerable to artillery or air bombardment . The decision not to attack these positions , sometimes only hundreds of meters from the Israeli border , made it possible for Hizbullah to continue firing rockets over Northern Israel throughout the war . Most of the short range Katyusha rockets fired on Israel during the war were fired from Nature Reserves . Human Rights Watch concluded in a report that " Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys " and " fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre - prepared positions outside villages . " A report on the war written by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sharply criticized the decision not to attack Nature Reserves and claimed that it " played into Hezbollah ' s hands " . Israeli IDF Fatalities . July 19 , 2006 July 20 , 2006 July 26 , 2006