Israel accused Palestinian groups of firing rockets across the border from Lebanon on Thursday, just a day after clashes broke out between Israeli police and Palestinians inside Islam’s third holiest site.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel’s enemies would “pay the price”.
Israel’s military said it had “identified 34 rockets that were fired from Lebanese territory into Israeli territory” – the biggest increase along the border since Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in 2006.
Twenty-five rockets were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, while “five rockets fell on Israeli territory,” the army statement said. The attack was not immediately claimed by any group.
But Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht blamed Palestinian groups.
“We know for sure that this is a Palestinian fire,” he told reporters.
“We believe that Hezbollah knew about this, and Lebanon has some responsibility as well. We are also investigating whether Iran was involved,” he continued.
Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he rejected any “escalation” from his country following the rocket attack.
Israeli police were widely condemned for clashing with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque – Islam’s third holiest site – early Wednesday.
Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Thursday: “We will attack our enemies and they will pay the price for any act of aggression.”
Israeli emergency services reported a man with shrapnel injuries and a woman with injuries while running to a shelter during the attack.
– ‘Extremely serious’ –
The army said warning sirens were sounded in the town of Shlomi and Moshav Betzet in northern Israel and in the Galilee.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which patrols the border area between the two countries technically still at war, urged restraint.
“The current situation is extremely serious,” the force said. “Unifil urges restraint and avoidance of further escalation.”
The Israeli army denied to AFP that it had retaliated “so far” in response to reports from Lebanon’s national news agency that Israel had struck targets in southern Lebanon.
According to Lebanese reports, Israeli artillery fired “several shells from their positions on the border” towards the outskirts of the two villages after Israel launched “several Katyusha-type rockets”.
A statement said Defense Minister Yoav Galant “completed a situation assessment with senior officials in Israel’s defense establishment”, after which he instructed to “prepare all possible responses to recent events”.
Inspecting her damaged office in the town of Shlomi, 46-year-old Shlomi Naaman told AFP: “I heard sirens, I heard booms, I was in my house, it was very scary.”
Also from Shlomi, 21-year-old Noy Atias said: “It’s nothing special… It’s the reality in Israel.”
“Security is the most important thing in life, and nothing else matters,” he accused political leaders of “being busy with things that are not important”.
– Al-Aqsa conflict –
Israeli riot police carried out a pre-dawn raid on the prayer hall of the Al-Aqsa mosque on Wednesday, aimed at dispersing “law-breaking youths and masked agitators” they said had barricaded themselves inside.
The violence escalated with militants exchanging rockets and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip during both the Jewish Passover and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters that the US said it recognizes Israel’s “legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression”.
“Our commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering,” he said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres also condemned the rocket attack and called for “maximum restraint by all actors”.
France condemned what it called “indiscriminate rocket fire targeting Israeli territory from Gaza and southern Lebanon”.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed armed movement Hezbollah warned on Thursday it would support “all measures” the Palestinian group could take against Israel in the aftermath of the conflict.
“Hezbollah strongly condemns the attack carried out by the Israeli occupation forces against the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound,” the group said in a statement.
The Lebanese group has close ties with the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules Gaza, and with the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, which is also based in the coastal enclave.
The rockets came a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Lebanon for a visit.
Haniyeh said late Thursday that Palestinians “will not sit with their arms crossed” in the face of Israeli “aggression” against al-Aqsa.
In a statement he called on “all Palestinian organizations to unite their ranks and intensify their resistance against the Zionist occupation (Israel)”.
The last rocket from Lebanon to Israel was fired in April 2022.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)