After police raids on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque this week, Israel’s military struck locations in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday in reprisal for Hamas rocket fire.
Israel claimed its planes attacked 10 Hamas-controlled tunnels and weapons factories in Gaza, causing loud explosions.
The military claimed it hit three Hamas infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon around 4 a.m. Residents of the Rashidiyeh refugee camp near Tyre heard three loud booms.
Hamas condemned Israeli action against Lebanon near Tyre before daybreak.
Two Lebanese security officials claimed the attack struck a small agricultural facility near the rocket launch site.
Reuters witnesses reported a massive southern agricultural crater after the bombing.
On Friday morning, a Lebanese Civil Defense member at the location reported no injuries.
Israeli forces struck in reaction to Hamas-launched rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. Twenty-five air defense systems intercepted 34 Lebanon-launched rockets, according to the military. It was the largest since 2006 when Israel attacked Hezbollah.
At a security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said, “Israel’s reaction, tonight and later, will exact a tremendous price from our adversaries.”
While Israeli planes bombed Gaza, rocket salvoes were fired, and sirens rang in adjacent Israeli communities. One missile struck a home in Sderot, but no significant injuries were reported.
During Ramadan, which coincides with Passover, Israeli authorities raided the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, sparking cross-border attacks.
“We hold the Zionist occupation totally accountable for the severe escalation and brazen assault against the Gaza Strip and for the consequences it would bring onto the region,” Hamas declared.
Although Israel blamed Hamas for Thursday’s strike while Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was visiting Lebanon, security analysts said Hezbollah, the strong Shi’ite party that helps Israel’s major nemesis Iran spread its dominance across the region, must have given its consent.
“It’s not Hezbollah firing, but it’s hard to think that Hezbollah didn’t know about it,” former Israeli military intelligence chief Tamir Hayman tweeted.
Hezbollah did not respond to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s condemnation of military activities threatening stability. Before the missiles were fired on Thursday, top Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine claimed any infringement on Al-Aqsa “would inflame the whole area.”
UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, said it had spoken to both sides and that they did not want war, but it warned that the situation might escalate and asked all parties to stop.
An Israeli military official stated the operation was ended for now. “Nobody wants an escalation right now,” he told reporters. “Silence will be responded with quiet, at least in the coming hours.”
Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps have occasionally shot toward Israel. However, after the 2006 Hezbollah battle, the border has remained peaceful.
Israel had the right to defend itself when Lebanon and Gaza launched missiles.
But, it raised to worry about events at the Al-Aqsa mosque, where Israeli police were seen hitting worshipers during efforts to evict groups of young men who had barricaded themselves inside.
Ramadan draws hundreds of thousands to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound, Islam’s third holiest site. The Temple Mount, where the two biblical Jewish temples stood, is Judaism’s holiest place, but non-Muslims cannot pray there.
Tensions have long flared there. Two thousand twenty-one, For example, clashes sparked a 10-day Israel-Gaza conflict.
The police tactics have enraged Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and the Arab world.
Late Thursday, police reported disruptions in Umm el-Fahem, Sakhnin, and Nazareth, Israeli Arab cities.
Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist administration has faced enormous protests over its now-suspended intentions to limit the Supreme Court’s authority. The growing security situation complicates matters.
After the missile incident, opposition leader Yair Lapid said the government could depend on cross-party support, while Netanyahu stated Israelis supported the security services.
“We will strike against Israel regardless of their internal argument. This unites us all, “Netanyahu stated.
During Thursday’s missile strike, T.V. video showed smoke billowing over Shlomi, a northern Israeli border village and smashed automobiles. Israel Airports Authority shuttered Haifa and Rosh Pina airports.
“I’m shaking, I’m in shock,” Liat Berkovitch Kravitz told Israel’s Channel 12 news inside her Shlomi home’s reinforced room. “A blast sounded like the room burst.”
The Israeli military reported mortar projectiles across the border.
After a year of growing Israeli-Palestinian violence, the U.N. Security Council met privately to examine the problem.
“It’s going to be critical for everyone to do what they can to reduce tensions,” U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters on his way into the meeting.
Most of Gaza’s rocket launches at Israel were intercepted before Thursday’s onslaught. After the launches, Israel bombed Hamas positions, which it blames for assaults from the blockaded coastal strip.
From Gaza, Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees spokesperson Muhammad Al-Braim applauded the Lebanon rocket strikes, linking them to the Al-Aqsa occurrences, but did not claim responsibility.
He claimed, “No Arab and no Muslim would stay mute while (Al-Aqsa) is being assaulted in such a violent and barbaric fashion without the enemy paying the price for its aggression.”
