Syrian-based Lebanon outfit Hezbollah fired some 50 Katyusha rockets at Israel for what the group said was in support of the Palestinian cause.
The Iran-backed group said the latest attack on Beit Hillel in northern Israel was in reply to its attacks on Kfar Kela and Deir Siriane in Lebanon, which it said had caused civilian casualties there.
Middle East tensions rose to the highest levels on Sunday as Iran and allied organizations prepared to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, for which Israel was held responsible, thereby threatening a regional war.
This attack on Israel is at a time when the United States is redeploying more battleships and fighter planes to the Middle East. At the same time, the Western countries pleaded their citizens to evacuate from Lebanon—the country, which houses the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement—and airlines ceased operations.
The assassination this week of senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran following the murder of Hezbollah’s army chief in Beirut last week has prompted Iran and the so-called ‘axis of unified resistance’. Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syrian-affiliated Iran-backed groups have already been engulfed in the nearly 10-month Israeli-Palestinian militant group Hamas conflict in Gaza.
As the fighting enters Day 11, Israel targeted a school compound in Gaza City in an attack that the Hamas-ruled territory’s civil defense agency said killed at least 17. On Saturday, Israel again traded fire with Hezbollah and carried out a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank.
Haniyeh was buried on Friday in Qatar, where he had been operating. The Islamic militant group, Hamas, and Iran,, among others, have accused Israel of masterminding the attack but the country has not said anything. Hezbollah is to advance deeper inside Israel and no longer will be bound by military targets, Iran said on Saturday.
