JERUSALEM/GAZA—military Israel's struck targets in Lebanon and Gaza early Friday in retaliation for rocket attacks claimed on the terrorist group Hamas, as tensions escalated following police raids this week on the Al-Aqsa shrine in Jerusalem.
Israel claimed its planes attacked 10 targets in Gaza, including tunnels and weapons manufacture and development centers of Hamas, which governs the blockaded southern coastal enclave.
About 4 a.m., the military claimed it had also targeted three Hamas infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon, where people in the Rashidiyeh refugee camp near Tyre heard three loud explosions. According to Reuters witnesses, the hit looked to have created a massive crater on fields in the south.
On Friday morning, a member of Lebanon's Civil Defense confirmed there were no injuries.
The operations followed missile assaults from Lebanon on northern Israeli communities, which Israeli officials blamed on Hamas. According to the military, 34 rockets were launched from Lebanon, 25 of which were intercepted by air defense systems. It was the largest such strike since Israel's conflict with the highly armed Hezbollah terrorist group in 2006.
“Israel’s response, tonight and later, will exact a significant price from our enemies,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a security cabinet meeting.
While Israeli planes bombed Gaza, missiles were launched in retaliation, and sirens rang in Israeli villages and communities along the border. Nevertheless, no significant injuries were reported, and just one missile struck a target, destroying a home in the southern town of Sderot.
The cross-border bombings occurred amid a growing conflict over Israeli police incursions at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound during Ramadan, which this year coincided with the Jewish Passover festival.
We hold the Zionist occupation fully responsible for the grave escalation and the flagrant aggression against the Gaza Strip and for the consequences that will bring onto the region,” Hamas said in a statement.
Although Israel blamed Hamas for the strike, which occurred when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was visiting Lebanon, security analysts claimed Hezbollah, the strong Shi'ite group that aids Israel's major adversary Iran in projecting its authority across the region, must have given its assent.
“It’s not Hezbollah shooting, but it’s hard to believe that Hezbollah didn’t know about it,” Tamir Hayman, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said on Twitter.
Lebanon's Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, released a statement denouncing any military activities from its territory that threatened stability, but Hezbollah did not respond immediately. Before to the missile launch, top Hezbollah commander Hashem Safieddine warned that any violation of Al-Aqsa "would inflame the whole area."
UNIFIL, the U.N. The UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon said it had been in communication with the parties and that both sides had said that they did not desire war, but that the situation was threatening to deteriorate and encouraged all parties to cease their activities.
