Israel Faces Biggest Rocket Barrage From Lebanon Since 2006

Bloomberg News
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(Bloomberg) -- Israel fought off a barrage of rockets from Lebanon on Thursday in the most sustained attack since a 2006 war, adding to tensions a day after a spike in confrontations in Gaza and Jerusalem that coincided with religious holidays.

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At least 34 rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon, of which 25 were successfully intercepted, according to the latest information from the Israeli army. Six rockets fell in Israeli territory and two caused damage.

Two people in the Galilee region were injured, including a man hit by shrapnel and a woman as she ran to a shelter, according to the Israeli medical aid society Magen David Adom.

“It is the largest barrage of rockets from Lebanon since 2006,” said Major General Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence.

The decision on how to respond “will be made in the coming hours,” he told journalists in an online briefing. A “full-scale war” is likely to be avoided, he said.

The fresh confrontation coincides with an escalation in Israel’s shadow war with its main regional enemy Iran, which supports militant groups committed to Israel’s destruction like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.

President Joe Biden has been briefed and US officials continue their dialogue with their Israeli counterparts on this and other issues, according to the National Security Council. “We’re very concerned about the violence there,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the council, told reporters. “We call on all sides to de-escalate.”

Hezbollah, as well as Palestinian groups, have been behind past rocket attacks from Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet later Thursday with the inner security cabinet, his office said. It sets important defense and foreign policy, including having the authority to order serious military activity.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are believed to be responsible this time, with Hezbollah assumed to have known about the attacks, said Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman.

Tensions have been building with the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday overlapping with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Late Wednesday, renewed clashes broke out between Israeli police and Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a flashpoint.

The state-run Lebanese news agency said Israel struck back with artillery fire, which the Israeli army denied. Sirens sounded in the towns of Shlomi and Moshav Betzet and in the Galilee region.

Earlier, seven surface-to-air rockets exploded in midair without being intercepted after being launched from Gaza toward southern Israel and the Gaza Strip Sea, the Israeli military said.

Israeli police used force to remove people at Al-Aqsa, which lies in a hillside spot sacred for both Muslims and Jews and has sparked conflict in the past, for the second time Wednesday. They said they intervened in the compound after mostly masked men tried to barricade themselves inside, throwing stones and fireworks.

The last conflict with Hamas was 11-day fighting that took place in May 2021.

Rockets flew Wednesday toward the Israeli city of Sderot and were shot down by Israel. Hamas denounced the Israeli police action at Al-Aqsa, having earlier urged Palestinians to go to the holy site and barricade themselves in to prevent Jews who might seek to enter as part of Passover observance.

--With assistance from Fadwa Hodali, Dana Khraiche and Josh Wingrove.

(Updates with further US comment in seventh paragraph)

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