The war between Israel and Gaza has been going on since October 7, 2023 (File)
Beirut:
Hezbollah forces resumed rocket and artillery attacks on Israel on Friday, ending the silence along the border after Israel’s killing of the Lebanese group’s military commander in Beirut.
Hezbollah said it fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace at night, forcing it to turn back. His forces also carried out two artillery strikes and two rocket attacks on military positions in northern Israel, the report said.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it had successfully intercepted an air target heading from Lebanon towards the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire hit several villages in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanese state media, a day after an Israeli strike killed at least five Syrian migrant workers in southern Lebanon, according to medics.
The Israeli army also said it had struck two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Thursday that he had ordered calm along the border after Tuesday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed military commander Fuad Shukr, out of respect for the victims and to reflect about the next steps.
The attack on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs also killed an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate, but the country should study what their response would be or otherwise resume its usual military operations against Israel.
Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been exchanging fire for almost ten months in parallel to the Gaza war, with the exchanges largely confined to the border area.
But the strikes since last week threaten to turn the conflict into a full-scale regional war.
Israel and the United States have accused Hezbollah of killing 12 youths in a July 27 rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a claim Hezbollah has denied.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, told Reuters on Friday that it had not investigated the incident because the Israeli-occupied Golan is outside its mandate area.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
