In the midst of intensifying border clashes between Lebanon and Israel in recent days, the armed wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas stated on Wednesday that it had launched a barrage of rockets towards northern Israel from south Lebanon.
Since Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist group went to war in October, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army have engaged in almost daily gunfire, with Palestinian organizations also periodically claiming assaults in Lebanon.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, claimed in a statement that it had fired two barrages of “Grad rockets” at two Israeli military locations.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “approximately 10 launches which crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel were identified”, adding that sirens had sounded in north Israel’s Kiryat Shmona area.
Air defences “successfully intercepted a number of the launches,” the statement said, adding that the army “struck the sources of the fire in Lebanon”.
Israeli police reported property damage in the Kiryat Shmona area but no wounded.
The most well-known Hamas person to be murdered in the conflict was Saleh al-Aruri, the deputy head of Hamas, along with six other militants in Hezbollah’s stronghold in south Beirut, during an attack in January that an American defense official claimed was carried out by Israel.
A top Hamas officer escaped an attempted murder this month, security sources said AFP, south of Beirut.
There are fears of an all-out conflict on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon due to the increasing cross-border exchanges that have occurred since October 8, the day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out.
The exchanges have killed at least 284 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 44 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Among the dead are at least 24 fighters from Palestinian organizations, including 10 Hamas.
The Israeli army reports that six civilians and ten soldiers have died on the Israeli side.
