Saturday: More than 80 troops injured in Lebanon

VIDEO - Some 84 Israel Defense Forces soldiers were injured Saturday in a series of fire incidents in southern Lebanon and were evacuated to hospitals. About 35 were taken to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, 33 were hospitalized in the Ziv Medical Center in Safed, and another six were rushed to the Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariya. Another 10 injured arrived at the Rambam Medical Center on Saturday evening. Israel at war - full coverage Some of the soldiers were injured in battles with terrorists near the village of Randouria in the eastern region. Alex Safrifov, a soldier from the Nahal Brigade, was among the wounded and was evacuated to the Rambam Hospital in Haifa. He suffered light wounds to the legs and arms. He told Ynet that he and his comrades entered and left Lebanon a number of times in the past few weeks, and this time, upon reentering a southern Lebanese village, Hizbullah operatives opened a massive salvo fire at them, which included mortar shells and anti-tank missiles. A reserves officer from the Paratroopers Brigade, who was serving in the southeast sector of Lebanon, arrived at the hospital to visit his wounded friends. He assessed that even though there was a high number of wounded, entry into Lebanon was easier now following the Air Force operations preparing the territory over the past few weeks. "There are a lot more forces in the field," the officer said. They can enter with more ease and the resistance is much lighter than it was two weeks ago." "This month of bombardments by the air force was not superfluous we sacrificed a lot of lives, but we achieved very significant accomplishments. Now the politicians are holding the cards. If they don't take advantage of this card that we attained for them, then we'll have to say that much of our activity was for nothing," he noted. The fighting on Friday claimed a heavy toll. On Friday night it was cleared for publication that a reserve soldier was killed and another soldier was moderately injured on Friday afternoon during exchanges of fire in the village of Rashef. The families were notified. Another four soldiers were lightly injured during an elite unit's operation in a village on the central region of southern Lebanon. Starting Friday night, an airlift began moving from the northern border into Lebanon, and the helicopters landed a great number of forces inside the field. Sources in the IDF described the move as "the biggest operation carried out in recent years." A large number of aircraft participated in the mission, including Yanshuf and Yasur helicopter gunships flown by reserve and standing army pilots. Simultaneous to landing the forces, supplies for soldiers were also airdropped from the helicopters. Each of the sorties had its own particular destination. Forces from the Golani Brigade killed at least four Hizbullah operatives north of Bint Jbeil in southwest Lebanon. In the east, forces discovered a large weapons arsenal. Since last night over 40 terrorists were killed in south Lebanon, and head of the Northern Command operation headquarters Alon Friedman assessed that since the beginning of the fighting, some 520 Hizbullah fighters were killed. Defense establishment officials estimated that the operation that has been launched on Friday will carry on for several more days, until it is halted in favor of an implementation of the diplomatic agreements. "An operation on such a scale does not stop at once, and we shall take advantage of every minute in order to gain more and more accomplishments," a security official told Ynet. Hanan Greenberg and Meital Yasur-Beit Or contrinuted to the report

Saturday: More than 80 troops injured in Lebanon

(VIDEO) Some 84 soldiers injured in Lebanon battles brought to hospitals in Haifa, Safed and Nahariya. Soldiers hurt during wide-scale operation which began Friday, defined as 'biggest operation carried out in recent years'