Following an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon that left a commander of the Iran-backed Hezbollah organization gravely injured, the Israeli army reported that some thirty rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon late on Thursday into early Friday.
“We can confirm that around 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward the areas of Ein Zeitim and Dalton in the north of Israel,” an army spokesperson told AFP, adding that initial reports suggested “no one was wounded” by the strikes.
A commander of the Iran-backed Hezbollah organization was gravely injured earlier on Thursday night by an Israeli drone attack on a car in south Lebanon, according to sources on both sides of the border.
A Lebanese security source, who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP that the commander was “seriously wounded and a companion was also injured” in the attack.
The Israeli military claimed that a “Hezbollah commander” was involved in cross-border rocket strikes and that its aircraft had struck him in south Lebanon.
“Involved in a number of launches toward Kiryat Shmona and Metula” in northern Israel, the assertion went.
But a military spokesman was unable to say whether those included rocket and missile launches earlier on Thursday.
The strike took place on one of the main roads into the city of Nabatiyeh, some way from the border region that has seen almost daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last October.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the vehicle had caught fire after it was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli drone as it entered the city at around 4:15 pm (1415 GMT).
The Lebanese army closed off the main road where the strike took place, an AFP photographer reported.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it had targeted a brigade headquarters in the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona in the latest exchanges between the two sides.
It said it fighters “targeted the Meron air control base with a Falaq missile” in response to Israeli attacks “on villages and civilians”.
The Israeli military said it “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel”.
It said it had carried out air strikes on Hezbollah targets, “including weapons inside a truck, a terrorist infrastructure and a military compound in the areas of Khiam and Kfar Hamam.”
Israeli air force chief Tomer Bar warned that if war breaks out on the Lebanese border, “there will be massive and significant blows, hundreds of targets will be attacked simultaneously deep in the country — as well as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and the Bekaa (Valley)”.
In an effort to support the Palestinian Islamist organization, Hezbollah has been hitting Israeli army sites along the border since the day after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which started the Gaza conflict.
According to an AFP count, Israel has killed 227 people in repeated bombardments of border communities in Lebanon, predominantly Hezbollah members but also 27 civilians.
According to the Israeli army, 15 persons have died on the Israeli side in the northern border region, including 9 troops and 6 civilians.
The conversations have raised concerns about a recurrence of the deadly conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, which Western countries are frantically trying to avert.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne visited Beirut this week hot on the heels of his British counterpart David Cameron.
