Israel retaliates with airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza following rocket attacks from across the border
Israel retaliates with airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Gaza, targeting Hamas after rocket attacks
Israel has launched airstrikes on targets belonging to Hamas in southern Lebanon and Gaza, following a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. The attacks come amid escalating tension, days after Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
According to Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, the international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the strikes on southern Lebanon mainly targeted Palestinian targets in the area from where the rockets were launched into Israel. The Al-Manar news outlet, backed by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, reported that three Israeli strikes hit an open area in the Tyre region. The Lebanese national news agency (NNA) reported damage to homes, cars, a livestock pen, and other infrastructure, but no casualties have been reported so far.
In a statement, the IDF said that it will not allow Hamas to operate from within Lebanon and holds the state of Lebanon responsible for any directed fire from its territory.
Lebanon has condemned the Israeli airstrikes, with the country’s foreign ministry saying that it would submit an official complaint to the UN Security Council, calling Israel’s strikes a “flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
The recent violence comes amid tensions in Jerusalem, where Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound. The incident followed weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem over the possible eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Israel strikes Hamas targets in Gaza and southern Lebanon, Hamas condemns attacks
Israel has launched airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza and southern Lebanon, following a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. The attacks come amid escalating tension, days after Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the strikes and expressed solidarity with the Lebanese people. It also condemned Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that a children’s hospital in Gaza City was damaged by the Israeli strikes, causing distress to the young patients inside. The ministry added that it is unacceptable for health facilities to be targeted.
The Israeli strikes targeted 10 sites in Gaza, including production sites, research and development sites, and tunnel infrastructure, according to Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, the international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Earlier, the IDF said it hit several Hamas weapons manufacturing sites, an underground weapons complex, and “terror” tunnels in Beit Hanoun and Khan Yunis. An IDF drone also struck a heavy machine gun in northern Gaza that was used to fire rounds toward IDF jets and Israeli territory.
The IDF said that the strikes on southern Lebanon were focused mainly on Palestinian targets in the area from where they believe the rockets were launched into Israel. The Al-Manar news outlet, backed by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, reported that three Israeli strikes hit an open area in the Tyre region. The Lebanese national news agency (NNA) reported damage to homes, cars, a livestock pen, and other infrastructure, but no casualties have been reported so far.
Hecht told reporters that there is a lot of messaging going through political spheres to try to deescalate the situation. “Nobody wants an escalation right now,” he said.
The recent violence comes amid tensions in Jerusalem, where Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound. The incident followed weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem over the possible eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Hours earlier than the IDF moves in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel could “hit our enemies and they may pay a charge for each act of aggression.”Anger over police raids on mosque
The change of hearthplace comes as anger boils throughout the vicinity over Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque, certainly considered one among Islam`s holiest webweb sites, in Jerusalem on Wednesday, which drew extensive condemnation from the Arab and Muslim global and sparked retaliatory rocket hearthplace from Gaza into Israel.
Then on Thursday, the IDF stated a few 34 rockets have been released into Israel from Lebanon in the biggest such assault for the reason that a 2006 battle among the 2 nations left round 1,two hundred Lebanese humans and one hundred sixty five Israelis dead.
Videos published on social media confirmed rockets from Lebanon streaking via the skies over northern Israel, and the sounds of explosions withinside the distance. Israel closed its northern airspace withinside the wake of the barrage. An Israeli navy spokesman stated they believed Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization become at the back of the assault, now no longer Hezbollah.
The Lebanese navy showed some of a rockets have been released from the country`s south, however did now no longer say who had fired them. It stated on Twitter that a unit had determined “missile launchers and some of rockets meant for launch” withinside the region of the Lebanese cities of Zibqin and Qlaileh, and become “presently operating to dismantle them.” On Friday, the Lebanese navy stated it had additionally determined a rocket launcher and unused missiles withinside the southern Marjayoun area.
Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanons southern border vicinity militarily and politically, neither denied nor claimed duty for the rocket hearthplace in Israel. But the effective Iran-sponsored armed organization seemed to trace at it in a announcement Thursday, caution that “loads of hundreds of thousands of Muslims” have been organized to “shed blood” for al-Aqsa. In current months, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah stated that violations on the mosque compound in Jerusalems vintage town could cause “all hell to interrupt free withinside the vicinity.”
Footage from in the mosque on Wednesday confirmed Israeli officials beating humans with their batons and rifle-butts, then arresting loads of Palestinians. Israeli police stated they entered the mosque after “loads of rioters” attempted to barricade themselves inside.
Hecht, the IDF worldwide spokesman, related the rocket hearthplace to the 2 Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque, announcing that they’d created “very bad energies.”
“The context of the tale begins offevolved days in the past on Temple Mount with those very, very harsh pix popping out of the prayer at night,” Hecht stated, the use of the Jewish call for the Jerusalem holy site, which is thought to Muslims because the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. The overseas minister for Jordan, the custodian of the al-Aqsa mosque and different Muslim and Christian holy webweb sites in Jerusalem, stated “we’re at a totally risky moment.”
“What we see unfolding at the Lebanese border is glaringly a consequence, a response to what we noticed taking place in al-Aqsa [mosque],” Ayman Safadi informed CNN on Thursday.
Lebanon and Israel are taken into consideration enemy states, however a truce among them has in large part held for the reason that 2006 battle. On Friday, the UN`s peacekeeping pressure in Lebanon (UNIFIL) stated its head of undertaking and pressure commander become speakme with government on each facets, and that each Israel and Lebanon have stated “they do now no longer need a battle.”
There were numerous small-scale rocket assaults from Lebanon in current years which have triggered retaliatory moves from Israel. Few casualties have been pronounced in the ones incidents, with the biggest dying toll in an change of hearthplace in 2015 that left Israeli squaddies and a Spanish peacekeeper dead. Palestinian factions in Lebanon have been believed to be at the back of the ones rocket assaults.
Escalation is extraordinarily serious
The Israeli navy pinned the blame for the rockets from Lebanon on both Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with Hecht announcing the IDF assumed that “Hezbollah knew approximately it, and Lebanon additionally has duty.”
But he emphasised numerous instances that the IDF considered the assault as having come from a Palestinian source, and that it did now no longer constitute a widening of the strugglefare to actors out of doors of the direct Israeli-Palestinian strugglefare, elevating hopes that tensions will be ratcheted down after the incident.
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry additionally stated it become equipped to cooperate with the United Nations and take steps to “repair calm and stability” withinside the south, whilst calling on “the worldwide network to position strain on Israel to prevent escalation,” the state-owned National News Agency pronounced.
The IDF has been worried for a while approximately an escalation at the Lebanese border, and hosted a high-degree seminar withinside the spring of 2022 to short reporters and coverage makers approximately it.
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping undertaking in Lebanon, stated Thursday`s escalation of violence among Lebanon and Israel become “extraordinarily serious.”
UNIFIL additionally stated it had directed its employees stationed on the border among the 2 nations to transport to air raid shelters, as a “not unusualplace practice.”
The White House stated it become “extraordinarily worried with the aid of using the persevering with violence and we urge all facets to keep away from in addition escalation.
