The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck infrastructure belonging to Hamas in southern Lebanon, adding that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for attacks originating from its territory. Blasts were heard around the Lebanese city of Tyre, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said.
Earlier, Israel had also carried out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, with its fighter jets striking two underground tunnels and two Hamas weapon manufacturing sites in the northern and central Gaza Strip, according to a statement by the Israeli army. There were no reports of casualties, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
While most of the 34 rockets from Lebanon on Thursday were intercepted by Israel’s aerial defense system, according to the IDF, at least six landed in Israeli territory, and a 19-year-old man was lightly injured by shrapnel. The IDF also said five surface-to-air rockets were launched from Gaza during the day on Thursday, and at least nine more overnight amid the Israeli strikes, local media reported.
Lebanese authorities had no immediate reaction to the Friday airstrikes. On Thursday, they had tried to dial down tensions with Israel, with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati saying that the country “absolutely rejects any military escalation launched from its land and using Lebanese territory to execute operations to destabilize the current stability.”
The Lebanese army announced that it had found rocket launchers and a number of rockets prepped for launch on the outskirts of two towns in the south of the country and was working to disassemble them.
No group in Lebanon or in the occupied Palestinian territories immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday’s rocket strikes. As with previous attacks, they coincided with a flare-up of tensions around the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a contested holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
The attack from Lebanon was among the largest since 2006, when Israel fought a bloody war with militants from Hezbollah, the country’s most powerful armed group and political party. The cross-border escalation comes at a time of unprecedented political instability in Israel and surging violence in the West Bank.
Shortly after the strikes on Lebanon, sirens went off in the area around Sderot, a southern Israeli city near Gaza.
“We will cripple our enemies and they will pay a price for every act of aggression,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at the start of a meeting with his security cabinet.
Netanyahu’s new far-right government has been buffeted by months of mass protests over its efforts to weaken the country’s Supreme Court. Some of the prime minister’s most prominent critics are high-ranking members of the defense establishment, who have repeatedly warned that the judicial push would undermine military readiness.
“At moments of truth, the citizens of Israel stand united and unified, and back the actions of the IDF and the other security services to defend our country and our people,” Netanyahu continued, seeking to reassure a nation on edge.
“The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for all terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip and it will face the consequences of the security violations against Israel,” the IDF statement said.
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip but also has connections to armed factions in Lebanon, “saw an opportunity happening in the Israeli internal scene,” said Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and a former Israeli national security adviser. “I think they are mistaken if they think our internal problems are going to help them with changing the rules of the game with Israel,” she added.
Thursday’s rocket fire followed a second night of violence around Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque after Israeli police stormed the area, using stun grenades, rubber bullets and batons to disperse thousands of worshipers who had gathered in the courtyard for Ramadan prayers.
At least six Palestinians were injured, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. It said 37 were injured the night before, on Tuesday, when Israeli officers forced their way into one of the mosque’s main prayer halls after worshipers had locked themselves inside. Worshipers threw stones and firecrackers at them, police said, and videos from the scene showed officers beating people with batons.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincides this year with the Jewish Passover holiday, a situation that Israeli security officials have long warned could lead to violence as worshipers gather in greater numbers and far-right supporters of Netanyahu’s government test a decades-old status quo around Jerusalem’s holy esplanade.
The site has been managed by a Jordanian religious authority since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. As part of an informal agreement between the two nations, Muslims pray atop the esplanade at al-Aqsa and the golden Dome of the Rock, while Jews pray at the Western Wall.
But the delicate balancing act has been strained by an increase in Jewish prayer on the esplanade in recent years. And Israel’s police now answer to Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right national security minister, who has his roots in the radical settler movement and has been convicted of anti-Palestinian incitement.
“Congratulations to the Israel Police officers for their brave and dedicated work,” he tweeted after Tuesday’s raid.
Shadi Mtour, a Fatah leader in Jerusalem, warned Wednesday that “these incursions are the gateway to evil, and al-Aqsa Mosque is exposed to them every year, and the entire region is exposed to danger.”
Hezbollah now controls the largest number of seats in Lebanon’s parliament and casts itself as a symbol of resistance to Israel and a defender of the Palestinian cause. Lebanon is also home to Palestinian armed groups that are suspected of launching smaller rocket attacks in recent years.
Thursday’s violence came amid a visit to Lebanon by Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief. During a meeting with Palestinian factions in the country, Haniyeh was defiant: “Our people and the factions of resistance will not stand with our hands tied in front of this brute aggression,” he was quoted as saying by Al Manar television. He emphasized the need to defend al-Aqsa “by any means necessary.”
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon described the situation as “extremely serious” and said its “peacekeepers continue to perform our duties, to the best of our abilities, during this difficult day.”
Following his cabinet meeting, Netanyahu put out a brief statement: “Israel’s response, tonight and in the future, will exact a heavy price,” he said, suggesting the strikes in Gaza were only a start.
“I think Netanyahu has many things on his mind,” said Mkhaimar Abu Sada, a political scientist in Gaza, predicting the Israeli leader would seek to avoid a wider conflict. “Neither Netanyahu nor the Israeli military and security establishment I think are ready for such a scenario right now.”
Rubin reported from Tel Aviv, Dadouch from Beirut, Berger from Washington and Masih from Seoul. Hazem Balousha in Gaza City contributed to this report.
