BEIRUT– 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 injured several people. including children.
Also on 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 infrequent.
On Saturday night, an Israeli airstrike on the southern coastal village of Adloun hit a weapons depot and was followed by a series of explosions that hit nearby villages with shrapnel, the state-run National News Agency, or NNA, said. The agency said three people were slightly injured in the nearby village of Kharayeb and hospitalized.
The agency did not provide further details about the weapons cache, but it was believed to belong to Hezbollah, which has a large presence in the area. The explosions lasted more than an hour after the airstrike, the NNA said.
Hezbollah’s attack earlier in the day with dozens of Katyusha rockets on the Dafna kibbutz in northern Israel came just hours after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the village of Burj al-Muluk in southern Lebanon, and shrapnel from the missile injured several people standing nearby. The ANN said that the injured civilians are Syrian citizens and among them are children.
The Israeli military said some 45 projectiles were detected crossing from Lebanon into northern Israel in three separate bombings. Some were intercepted, while others fell in open areas, causing no injuries but starting several fires in the Golan Heights, he said.
On Friday, Hezbollah said 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 the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, saying it was aimed at relieving pressure on Gaza. The exchange of gunfire and airstrikes, which has been 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 against Israeli attacks in Lebanon causing civilian casualties by “firing rockets and targeting new villages that were not attacked in the past.”
Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly members of Hezbollah, but also about 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have died.
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