According to local media reports, the second rocket was also fired from southern Lebanon after the Israeli raid on Al-Aqsa.
The Israeli army said it intercepted rocket fire from Lebanon after Israeli police attacked Palestinians at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque for two consecutive nights.
“A missile was launched from Lebanon into Israeli territory and successfully intercepted,” the army said in a first statement Thursday — the first launch from Lebanon since last April.
Warning sirens were sounded in the city of Shlomi and Moshav Betzet in northern Israel, the army added.
The Israeli military later tweeted that 34 rockets had been fired from Lebanon, 25 intercepted and at least four landed in Israel.
The rocket attack was followed by a burst of Israeli artillery fire across the border, Lebanon’s National News Agency said, without reporting casualties.
According to the Lebanese report, Israeli artillery fired “several shells from their positions on the border” at the outskirts of two villages after “several Katyusha-type rockets” were fired at Israel.
However, the Israeli military told AFP that it did not retaliate.
The rockets were fired by Palestinian factions and not by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, security sources told Portal.
Hezbollah controls security in southern Lebanon and has fought in wars against Israel in the past.
Palestinian refugee camps and armed groups are also located in southern Lebanon.
The MDA ambulance service in Israel said three people were injured in the rocket fire, including a 19-year-old man with shrapnel injuries in mild condition and a 60-year-old woman who was injured while running to a nearby animal shelter. Several others were treated for shock.
The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement that there had been “several rocket launches from southern Lebanon towards Israel” and that the Israeli army had informed UNIFIL that it had activated its Iron Dome defense system in response.
The head of the peacekeeping force, Major General Aroldo Lazaro, has been in contact with both Lebanese and Israeli authorities, the statement said. “The current situation is extremely serious. UNIFIL urges restraint and avoiding further escalation,” she added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is receiving “continuous updates on the security situation and will conduct an assessment with the heads of the security apparatus,” his office said.
There was no immediate responsibility for the attack, which came this week amid attacks by Israeli forces on Palestinian worshipers in Al-Aqsa, leading to regional and global condemnation of Israel.
Gaza missiles
On another border — that with the besieged Gaza Strip — armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into southern Israel for the second day in a row, according to the Israeli military.
No casualties were reported in the early morning rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
The rocket fire came after Israeli forces stormed the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City for a second night on Thursday, preventing Palestinian worshipers from entering the mosque for morning prayers.
In an earlier Israeli raid in the early hours of Wednesday, Israeli forces attacked worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque. At least 12 Palestinians were injured and more than 400 others arrested on the eve of the 15th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
A few hours later, under the protection of the Israeli police, dozens of Israeli settlers entered the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. In recent years, large groups of ultranationalist Jews have regularly visited the site, accompanied by police escorts, in what Palestinians perceive as a provocation.
Following Wednesday’s raid, Israeli planes attacked several locations in Gaza, hitting targets in two locations west of the city and in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the coastal enclave. Israeli authorities said the attack was in response to four rockets fired from the Gaza Strip earlier Wednesday, which in turn were in response to the police raid on Al-Aqsa.
A group of young men had also approached the barrier separating Gaza from Israel to the east and set fire to rubber tires and staged a sit-in to protest the crackdown on worshipers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Also on Wednesday, large crowds gathered across the Gaza Strip to call for protection for local believers. The rallies called for by Hamas – the group that rules the coastal enclave – and other Palestinian factions took place after the Ramadan night prayers.
Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and pictures of the Al-Aqsa Mosque while chanting slogans in support of the Mourabitoun – a group of Palestinian believers who characterize themselves as defenders of Al-Aqsa.
Two Palestinian factions, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said in a statement that all “attempts [by Israel] changing the status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque or Judaizing the place would ignite an unprecedented war on all fronts, especially in Gaza.”