JERUSALEM (CNN) Dozens of rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in a major escalation that comes amid regional tensions over Israeli police raids on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.
About 34 rockets were fired from Lebanese territory into Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, with the majority being intercepted but six landing in Israel.
It was the largest such attack since a war between the two countries in 2006, which killed around 1,200 Lebanese and 165 Israelis.
Videos posted on social media showed rockets hurtling through the sky over northern Israel and the sound of explosions in the distance.
The country closed its northern airspace after the barrage. No deaths were reported and it is not yet known which group in Lebanon fired the rockets.
Israel said it would decide “the place and time” of its response, an IDF defense official, who asked not to be named, told CNN. An Israeli military spokesman said they believe a Palestinian militant group was behind the attack, not the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will beat our enemies and they will pay a price for every act of aggression.”
The Lebanese Army confirmed that a number of rockets were fired from the south of the country, but did not provide details on who fired them. A tweet said a unit had found “rocket launchers and a number of missiles designed to be launched” near the Lebanese cities of Zibqin and Qlaileh and were “currently working to dismantle them.”
Hezbollah has not yet commented on the incident. It comes a day after Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, arrived in Beirut for meetings with Hezbollah officials.
Tensions in the region are sky-high after Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on two separate occasions on Wednesday when Palestinian worshipers were offering prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
IDF international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht linked the rocket fire to the two Israeli incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, saying they created “very negative energies”.
“The context of the story begins two days ago on the Temple Mount with these very, very harsh images coming out of prayer at night,” Hecht said, using the Jewish name for the holy site in Jerusalem known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif is , or Noble Sanctuary.
Footage from inside the mosque showed Israeli officers beating people with their batons and rifle butts and then arresting hundreds of Palestinians. Israeli police said they entered the mosque after “hundreds of rioters” tried to barricade themselves inside.
The incident, widely condemned by the Arab and Muslim world, sparked retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN: “We are at a very dangerous moment.”
“What we are seeing on the Lebanese border is obviously a consequence, a reaction to what we saw in al-Aqsa [mosque]’ Safadi said.
A member of the Israeli police’s bomb disposal unit walks past a damaged car after rockets were fired from Lebanon and intercepted by Israel on Thursday. Traces of rockets can be seen above the sky in northern Israel in this video screengrab, as authorities raised concerns about rising tensions between Israel and Lebanon.
Lebanon and Israel are considered warring states, but since the 2006 war there has largely been a ceasefire between them.
In recent years, there have been several small-scale rocket attacks from Lebanon, leading to retaliatory strikes from Israel. Few casualties were reported in these incidents, with the largest death toll coming from a gun battle in 2015 that killed two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish peacekeeper. Palestinian factions in Lebanon are believed to be behind these rocket attacks.
The 2006 conflict was the largest flare-up between Lebanon and Israel since 1982. Some 1,200 Lebanese and 165 Israelis died in a shootout that included a nationwide Israeli airstrike and a sea and air blockade. Hezbollah fired many rockets during the conflict, penetrating deep into Israeli territory.
Escalation is “extremely serious”
The Israeli military pinned the blame for the rockets on either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with Hecht saying the IDF assumes “Hezbollah knew about it and Lebanon shared responsibility.”
However, he stressed several times that the IDF considered the attack to have come from a Palestinian source and that it did not represent an extension of the conflict to actors outside the direct Israeli-Palestinian conflict, raising hopes that tensions could be eased after the incident.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry also said it was ready to work with the United Nations and take steps to restore “calm and stability” in the south, while urging “the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop the escalation.” , according to the state-run National News Agency.
The IDF has been concerned about an escalation at the Lebanese border for some time and held a high-level seminar in spring 2022 to brief journalists and policymakers on the matter.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said the escalation in violence between Lebanon and Israel on Thursday was “extremely serious”.
UNIFIL also said it had ordered its personnel stationed at the border between the two countries to go to bomb shelters as “standard practice”.
The White House said it was “extremely concerned by the ongoing violence and we urge all sides to avoid further escalation.”
Mia Alberti and Ghazi Balkiz contributed to this report.