BEIRUT: Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Lebanon in response to a rocket attack from across the border on Saturday, as militant group Hezbollah denied responsibility for the launch.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered “a second wave of strikes against dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” the defense ministry said, in the largest escalation since a November 27 ceasefire.
It said the strikes were “a response to rocket fire toward Israel and a continuation of the first series of strikes carried out this morning” against southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported one girl among five people killed in an Israeli strike during the day on the southern town of Touline.
The agency later said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre, targeted in the second wave of strikes on the south and east, with multiple injuries also reported.
Bilal Kachmar, spokesman for the Tyre Disaster Management Unit, told AFP two people were killed and two wounded when “an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Al-Raml neighborhood of Tyre,” a key coastal city targeted for the first time since the ceasefire.
A security source told AFP that a Hezbollah official was targeted in the Tyre strike, without confirming whether he had been killed.
Israel’s military said six rockets, three of which were intercepted, were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel Saturday, setting off air raid sirens.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attack, and called Israel’s accusations “pretexts for its continued attacks on Lebanon.”
Hezbollah said it stands “with the Lebanese state in addressing this dangerous Zionist escalation on Lebanon.”
While Hezbollah has long held sway over parts of Lebanon bordering Israel, other Lebanese and Palestinian groups have also carried out cross-border attacks.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned that renewed military operations on the southern border risked “dragging the country into a new war,” his office said.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi called for “pressure on Israel to stop the aggression and escalation and contain the dangerous situation on the southern borders.”
Israeli defense chiefs say they hold the Lebanese government responsible for all hostile fire from its territory, regardless of who launches it.
“We cannot allow fire from Lebanon on Galilee communities,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said of towns and villages in the north, many of which were evacuated after Hezbollah began firing at Israel in support of Hamas in October 2023.
“The Lebanese government is responsible for attacks from its territory. I have ordered the military to respond accordingly,” Katz said.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said it was “alarmed by the possible escalation of violence” following Saturday morning’s rocket fire.
France, which helped broker the ceasefire, condemned the rocket fire and urged Israel to show “restraint,” while Jordan called for immediate international action to “stop the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.”
Hezbollah has long had strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, but the war with Israel dealt the group devastating blows, leaving it massively weakened.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to pull its forces back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but has missed two deadlines to do so and continues to hold five positions it deems “strategic.”
Israel has carried out repeated air strikes during the ceasefire, targeting what it said were Hezbollah military sites that violated the agreement.
The Lebanese army said it had dismantled three makeshift rocket batteries in an area north of the Litani on Saturday.
Saturday’s flare-up came five days into Israel’s renewed offensive against Hamas in Gaza, which shattered the relative calm since a January 19 ceasefire there.
On Saturday in Gaza City, Sameh Al-Mashharawi said “seven people were martyred” in a strike on his family’s house that killed his two brothers, their children and wives.
Katz said Friday he had ordered the army to “seize more territory in Gaza.”
“The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel,” he said.
When the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire expired early this month, Israel rejected negotiations on the promised second stage, calling instead for the return of all its remaining hostages under an extended first stage.
That would have meant delaying talks on a lasting ceasefire, and was rejected by Hamas as an attempt to renegotiate the original deal mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.