Israeli artillery and air strikes hit south Lebanon yesterday after Israel said it had intercepted rockets fired from across the border, endangering a shaky truce that ended a year-long war between Israel and Hizbollah.
That conflict marked the deadliest spillover of the Gaza war, and a blistering Israeli offensive after months of cross-border exchanges of fire wiped out Hizbollah’s top commanders, many of its fighters and much of its arsenal.
Hizbollah denied responsibility for yesterday’s strikes, saying it had ‘no link’ to the rocket launches and that it remained committed to the ceasefire. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
An Israeli official said the identity of the group which fired the rockets had not been confirmed. Six rockets were fired, the official said, three of which crossed into Israel and were intercepted.
Yesterday’s exchange was the first since Israel in effect abandoned a separate ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas, an ally of Hizbollah, both backed by Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
Israel’s military said it had intercepted three rockets launched from a Lebanese district about 6km north of the border towards the Israeli border town of Metula, the second cross-border launch since the US-brokered ceasefire in November ended fighting.
In retaliation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to ‘act forcefully against dozens of terror targets in Lebanon’.
Israel’s military said it had struck dozens of Hizbollah rocket launchers and a command centre from which the group’s members had been operating, in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s state news agency reported Israeli air strikes and artillery barrages in the country’s south, including border towns and hilltops around 8km inside Lebanese territory.
Two people were killed and eight wounded by Israeli air strikes in the south near the border, the state news agency NNA said, quoting Lebanon’s health ministry.
There were no reports of casualties in Israel.
In Gaza, health authorities said five Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire, including a child, in incidents in Beit Lahiya and Gaza City in the north of the enclave.
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