Israel hit by barrage of rockets ‘fired by militants in Lebanon’

The strikes ratcheted up regional tensions a day after Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

Israel’s military said 34 rockets had been fired across the border and that 25 were shot down by its Iron Dome aerial defence system.

Another five rockets struck Israeli territory and the rest of the strikes were being investigated, security forces added.

The unusually large salvo of rockets raised fears of a wider conflagration as Israel’s bitter enemy, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, holds sway over much of southern Lebanon.

Over the past two days, tensions have rocketed at the sacred compound home to the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and along Israel’s tense border with Gaza.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed an “aggressive response”.

“We will strike our enemies and they will pay a price for every act of aggression,” he said in a statement late on Thursday, adding that Israelis remain united in the face of external threats despite their political differences.

In a briefing with reporters, Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army drew a clear connection between the rocket fire and the recent unrest in Jerusalem.

“It’s a Palestinian-oriented event,” he said, adding that either the Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups could be involved.

But he said the army believed that Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were aware of what happened and also held responsibility. He declined to say how Israel might respond, saying there were “all sorts of scenarios”.

Earlier on Thursday and late Wednesday night, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired several rockets toward Israel in protest over the Israeli police storming into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City with tear gas and stun grenades.

On Thursday, Hezbollah condemned Israel’s storming of Al-Aqsa, calling it “a flagrant violation”. The shrine — the third-holiest site in Islam — stands on a hilltop revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

No faction in Lebanon claimed responsibility for the salvo of rockets, which set off air raid sirens across the country’s north.

A Lebanese security official said the country’s security forces believed the rockets were launched by a Lebanon-based Palestinian militant group, not by Hezbollah militants. The official said there were no casualties on the Lebanese side.

A spokesperson for Hezbollah did not respond to a request for comment. Both Israel and Hezbollah have avoided an all-out conflict since their 34-day war in 2006 ended in a draw.

Tensions have simmered along the Lebanese border as Israel appears to have ratcheted up its shadow war against Iranian-linked targets in Syria, another close ally of Iran, Israel’s biggest enemy in the region.

Suspected Israeli air strikes in Syria in recent weeks have killed two Iranian military advisers and temporarily put the country’s two largest airports out of service. Mr Hecht said Thursday’s rocket fire was not believed to be connected to events in Syria.

In Washington, Principal Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said: “Israel has legitimate security concerns and has every right to defend themselves.”

But he also urged calm in Jerusalem. “We emphasise the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardises the status quo to us is unacceptable,” he said.

In Israel, Thursday’s rocket fire from Lebanon sent shrapnel flying that wounded at least two people, according to the Galilee Medical Centre. They included a 19-year-old man who was struck while driving in the Arab village of Fassouta and a 26-year-old hit while riding a motorbike. Israeli police said a bomb squad removed a number of fragments from areas in the north.