After a two-day pause, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement launched multiple rocket launcher attacks on settlements in Israel’s Western Galilee.
Massive attack from Hezbollah
The northern part of Israel bordering Lebanon has come under rocket attack from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) press office said on Thursday.
According to local media, Hezbollah fired at least 60 projectiles at border areas in northern Israel. They fell in the settlements of Betzet, Liman, Rosh HaNikra, Hanita and Shlomi.
The Israeli military said that shortly after the rocket fire, the air force “struck a Hezbollah launcher from which the shells were fired.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday that four Syrians were killed in an Israeli strike in the south of the country, where Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire almost daily since the start of the Gaza war in October. The ministry said the death toll could rise after DNA tests were carried out. Five Lebanese nationals were also wounded in the strike, the ministry added. Emergency officials told AFP that the dead were farmers and members of the same family.
The attack was the first for Hezbollah since an Israeli airstrike killed its supreme commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday night, and leader Hassan Nasrallah said operations would resume Friday morning. Nasrallah warned that his group would definitely retaliate to Shukr’s killing.
His death followed the killing of Hezbollah’s Hamas ally Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran strike that Iran and Hamas blamed on Israel. Israel declined to comment on his killing.
According to AFP, violence on the Lebanese side has killed at least 542 people since October, most of them militants but also 114 civilians. On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, at least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
Algeria suspends flights to Lebanon
Algeria’s flagship carrier Air Algerie said on Thursday it has suspended flights to and from Lebanon until further notice.
The airline urged all customers to contact the company’s call centres for further information and updates.
The national carrier did not give a specific reason for the decision. However, it followed similar actions by other airlines including Kuwait Airways, Royal Jordanian Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa and Swiss International Air Lines.
The suspension of flights comes amid rising tensions and the possibility of a wider conflict between Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah on one side and Israel on the other.
Meanwhile, international forces are working to de-escalate the situation and prevent the conflict from spreading further in the region.
Fears of a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated amid months of cross-border shootings. The escalation comes amid an Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, where nearly 39,500 people have been killed since last October following a Hamas attack.
The Israeli offensive on Gaza continues
At least four Palestinians were killed and several wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a residential flat in Gaza City late Thursday.
The Gaza Civil Defence Agency said in a statement that they recovered the bodies of four people and several wounded after Israeli warplanes struck a flat belonging to the Abu Hashem family on al-Jalaa Street in the northwest of the city.
The agency did not specify the number of the wounded and the extent of their injuries.
