BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said its fighters fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Saturday, targeting a kibbutz for the first time in nine months in retaliation for an Israeli drone strike earlier in the day that wounded several people, including children.
Also Saturday, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said it fired rockets from Lebanon at an Israeli army post in the northern Israeli village of Shomera in retaliation for “Zionist massacres” in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has carried out such attacks from Lebanon in recent months, but they have been rare.
Hezbollah’s attack with dozens of Katyusha rockets on the northern Israeli kibbutz Dafna came hours after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the southern Lebanese village of Burj al-Muluk, and shrapnel from the rocket injured several people standing nearby. The state-run National News Agency reported that the injured civilians were Syrian citizens and that some were children.
The Israeli military said about 45 projectiles were detected traveling from Lebanon into northern Israel in three separate barrages. It said some were intercepted, while others fell in open areas, causing no injuries but causing several fires in the Golan Heights.
Hezbollah said on Friday it had fired rockets at three villages in northern Israel for the first time in retaliation for an attack that killed several people the night before.
Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, as it sought to relieve pressure on Gaza. The exchange of fire and airstrikes, limited to a few kilometers or miles on either side of the border, has displaced tens of thousands of people in both countries.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that his group would retaliate for Israeli attacks in Lebanon that killed civilians “by firing rockets and attacking new villages that were not targeted in the past.”
Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also about 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.
