Israel’s military announced today that its warplanes had launched “a series of airstrikes against Lebanon”, fueling fears of an escalation between the two neighboring countries after months of daily cross-border fire in the context of the Gaza war.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, which started the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah has been targeting Israeli military positions on the border in support of its ally Hamas. Israel, on the other hand, regularly conducts artillery attacks on southern Lebanon and carries out targeted attacks against Hezbollah officials.
For now, the Israeli army has not released more details about today’s airstrikes, while the Lebanese media report that the three villages of Adshit, Savaneh and Shehabiyeh were targeted.
The Israeli airstrikes came after a rocket was fired from Lebanon into northern Israel today, injuring several people, Israeli medical sources said. According to the Magen David Adom rescue service, seven people were wounded, five of them in Safed.
Pro-Iranian Hezbollah has so far not claimed responsibility for this rocket attack.
Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have been displaced by the exchange of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday that the attacks in southern Lebanon will stop when the aggression in Gaza ends and there is a ceasefire there. “If they expand the conflict, we will do the same,” Nasrallah said in response to repeated threats by Israeli officials to start a war against Lebanon.
In more than four months since the beginning of the war in Gaza, at least 243 people, of which 175 Hezbollah fighters and 30 civilians, have died in southern Lebanon, according to the AFP calculation. On the Israeli side, 15 people died, nine soldiers and six civilians, according to the Israeli army.
