Hezbollah Fires Rockets Into Israel After Deadly Strikes

Hezbollah members prepare a Katyusha rocket launcher (Capture from Hezbollah video)
Hezbollah members prepare a Katyusha rocket launcher (Capture from Hezbollah video)
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Hezbollah Fires Rockets Into Israel After Deadly Strikes

Hezbollah members prepare a Katyusha rocket launcher (Capture from Hezbollah video)
Hezbollah members prepare a Katyusha rocket launcher (Capture from Hezbollah video)

Lebanon's Hezbollah on Sunday said it had fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel after Israeli strikes the day before left five dead in southern Lebanon, including three of the group's members.

Hamas ally Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.

Hezbollah said it had launched "dozens of katyusha-type rockets" in the morning on the Israeli village of Meron, eight kilometres (five miles) from the border.

Meron is home to a major air control base that the Iran-backed group has targeted several times since the start of the year.

Hezbollah said it had acted "in response to Israeli attacks against villages in the south and the homes of civilians", particularly the targeting of the home of a fighter in Kherbet Selm the day before, AFP reported.

A woman and another person were also killed in the same strike, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency.

"Following the sirens that sounded in northern Israel, approximately 35 launches from Lebanon toward Israeli territory were identified, a number of which were intercepted," the Israeli army said on Sunday.

The statement added that the Israeli air force struck Hezbollah infrastructure during the night, including a "military structure in which Hezbollah militants were identified in the area of Khirbet Selm".

At least 312 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of cross-border violence on October 8, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 53 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed, according to the latest official figures.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting on both sides of the border.

Strikes have largely remained confined to border regions for the moment, but several have hit Hezbollah positions further north in recent weeks, raising fears of a full-blown conflict.

The group has repeatedly said that it will only stop its attacks on Israel with a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Israeli Defene Minister Yoav Gallant said recently that any truce in Gaza would not change Israel's goal of pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, by force or diplomacy.



Israeli Strike in Syria's Quneitra Kills Two

The Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle on the Damascus-Quneitra road. AFP
The Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle on the Damascus-Quneitra road. AFP
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Israeli Strike in Syria's Quneitra Kills Two

The Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle on the Damascus-Quneitra road. AFP
The Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle on the Damascus-Quneitra road. AFP

A Syria war monitor said an Israeli airstrike on Thursday in Quneitra province in the Syria-controlled Golan Heights killed two people, days after major raids elsewhere in the country.

"An Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle" on the Damascus-Quneitra road, "killing two people," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, without identifying them.

A local security source told AFP that "two charred bodies were removed" from the vehicle that was hit.

The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the reported strike.

Thursday's strike came days after raids blamed on Israel killed 18 people in the central province of Hama, according to Syrian authorities.

The Observatory said those strikes killed 27 people, including six civilians, and targeted a "scientific research area" and other sites in the province's Masyaf area.