The Israeli military said it intercepted a rocket fired from Lebanon on Thursday, after violence at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque where Israeli police intervened to dislodge Palestinian worshipers, prompting warnings of possible reprisals in the region.
Israel shortly after bombarded southern Lebanon, announced the official Lebanese agency ANI, without reporting any casualties.
According to the ANI, Israeli artillery fired “several shells from its positions on the border” on the outskirts of two villages in southern Lebanon, after the launch of “several Katyusha-type rockets” at Israel.
“A rocket was fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory and was successfully intercepted,” the Israeli military said in a statement earlier. Warning sirens sounded in the town of Shlomi and Moshav Betzet in northern Israel, the army added, hinting that more rockets may have been fired.
This shooting has not been claimed so far.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is continuously informed of the development of the situation and must carry out an assessment with the heads of the security agencies”, his office said.
According to the emergency services, a man was slightly injured by shrapnel and a woman was injured while running for cover.
Earlier on Thursday, Lebanon’s pro-Iranian armed Islamist movement, Hezbollah, warned that it would support “any measures” Palestinian groups might take against Israel after clashes rocked Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third location holy of Islam.
“Solidarity” with the Palestinians
“Hezbollah strongly denounces the Israeli occupation forces’ assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and its attacks on worshipers,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
“Hezbollah proclaims its full solidarity with the Palestinian people and the resistance movements (to Israel, editor’s note), and undertakes to support them in all the measures they take to protect the faithful and the Al-Aqsa mosque and to dissuade the enemy from continuing their aggression,” he added.
Hezbollah, the pet peeve of Israel and which de facto controls southern Lebanon, maintains good relations with the Palestinian movement Hamas, in power in Gaza, and with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, received officials from both parties in March.
Two rockets were fired Wednesday evening from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, following similar fire the previous night to which Israel responded with strikes, amid violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The last rocket fire from Lebanon towards Israel dates back to April 2022.
Israel and Lebanon remain technically in a state of war after different conflicts and their border is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon.
In 2006, the last major confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah left more than 1,200 dead on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians, and 160 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.
The Shiite movement, considered a “terrorist organization” by many Western countries, is the only Lebanese faction to have kept its weapons since the end of the civil war (1975-1990).