Newsman: Israeli army says it’s ‘striking in Lebanon’ following air attacks on Gaza amid rising tension in wake of Al-Aqsa raids. The bombardment in the early hours of Friday followed a spate of rocket launches from southern Lebanon as tensions soared after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem twice this week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel would “hit our enemies and they will pay a price for every act of aggression.”
Israeli police raids at the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, in Jerusalem on Wednesday drew widespread condemnation from the Arab and Muslim world and sparked retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
Israeli troops fired stun grenades, attacked Palestinian worshippers and expelled them from the holy site as they gathered for Ramadan prayers.Footage from inside the mosque showed Israeli officers beating people with their batons and rifle-butts, then arresting hundreds of Palestinians. Israeli police said they entered the mosque after “hundreds of rioters” tried to barricade themselves inside.
Tensions are high after Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on two separate occasions Wednesday, as Palestinian worshipers offered prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
The latest Israeli air strikes hit in multiple areas of the coastal enclave, which is controlled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Several rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel in response.
Israel’s military has said it carried out air raids in Lebanon, on what it called Hamas targets, hours after it launched air raids on the besieged Gaza Strip.
The IDF said its fighter jets struck two “terror” tunnels in Beit Hanoun and Khan Yunis, along with two of Hamas’ weapons-manufacturing sites, “as a response to the security violations of Hamas during the last few days.”
Then on Thursday, the IDF said some 34 rockets were launched from into Israel from Lebanon, its northern Lebanese territory into Israeli territory, in the largest such attack since a 2006 war between the two countries left around 1,200 Lebanese people and 165 Israelis dead.
The Lebanese army confirmed a number of a rockets were launched from the country’s south, but did not say who had fired them. It said on Twitter that a unit had found “missile launchers and a number of rockets intended for launch” in the vicinity of the Lebanese towns of Zibqin and Qlaileh, and was “currently working to dismantle them.”
Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanon’s southern border region militarily and politically, neither denied nor claimed responsibility for the rocket fire in Israel. But the powerful Iran-backed armed group appeared to hint at it in a statement Thursday, warning that “hundreds of millions of Muslims” were prepared to “shed blood” for al-Aqsa. In recent months, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said that violations at the mosque compound in Jerusalem’s old city would cause “all hell to break loose in the region.”
IDF international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht linked the rocket fire to the two Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque, saying they had created “very negative energies.”
“The context of the story starts two days ago on Temple Mount with these very, very harsh pictures coming out of the prayer at night,” Hecht said, using the Jewish name for the Jerusalem holy site, which is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.
Israel’s army announced in a short statement at 4:07am (01:07 GMT) on Friday that it “is currently striking in Lebanon”. A Lebanese TV station reported explosions near a refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre.
The attacks on Gaza and Lebanon came after the Israeli military said 34 rockets had been fired from Lebanon on Thursday, with 25 intercepted and at least four landing inside the country. They were the first rockets fired from Lebanon towards Israel in a year and the biggest launch since Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Shia movement Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.
No organisation has yet claimed responsibility.
The Israeli military said its attack was focused on Hamas, the Palestinian movement running the Gaza Strip and a Hezbollah ally.
“The [Israeli military] will not allow the Hamas terrorist organisation to operate from within Lebanon and holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory,” it said in a statement.
