Hezbollah said on Thursday it had fired rockets at two locations in northern Israel in response to attacks that killed two civilians in southern Lebanon a day earlier, amid intensifying clashes.
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Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah has attacked Israeli military positions daily in support of its Palestinian ally.
Israel carries out targeted attacks and operations against Hezbollah officials.
In a press release, Hezbollah said it had attacked the Mochav (agricultural village) of Goren, nearly four kilometers from the border, “with Iranian-made Falaq missiles.”
A few hours earlier, the Shiite movement announced that it had fired “a volley of Katyusha rockets” at Kibbutz Eilon near Goren.
He confirmed that these two operations “came in response to Israeli attacks on villages and civilians, the last of which killed two elderly people, Hussein Hamdane and his wife Manar Abadi, in Kafra.”
Ali Abbas, a local rescuer, confirmed to AFP that the couple, in their 70s, were killed in Israeli attacks on this southern Lebanon town on Wednesday evening.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed in mid-February that he would make Israel pay the price “in blood” for civilians killed in Lebanon after attacks killed at least 15 people, including 10 civilians.
The pro-Iranian party, which also announced four more attacks on military targets on Thursday, usually targets Israeli army positions near the border.
Israel, for its part, is increasingly targeting Lebanese territory.
According to the official Lebanese news agency ANI, 14 people were also injured in the attacks in Kafra.
An AFP photographer saw a two-story house in the area that was almost completely destroyed. Hezbollah rescuers were trying to retrieve bodies from beneath the rubble, particularly using a bulldozer, he said.
In the afternoon, the Shiite movement announced the death of one of its fighters, originally from Kafra.
The shooting displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
According to an AFP count, at least 287 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 7, most of them fighters from Hezbollah and allied groups, as well as around 44 civilians.
According to the army, ten soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side.