JERUSALEM — Israel struck targets in southern Lebanon early Friday and resumed air strikes in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said, marking a further escalation in the region following violence this week at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
The military said it targeted installations of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen reported explosions in the southern port city of Tyre.
The strikes in southern Lebanon came after militants from Lebanon fired nearly three dozen rockets at Israel on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Gaza militants resumed rocket fire toward southern Israel early Friday following Israeli attacks there.
The fighting comes during a delicate time — when Jews are celebrating the Passover holiday and Muslims are marking the Ramadan holy month. Similar tensions spilled over into an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in 2021.
The current round of violence began Wednesday after Israeli police twice raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. That led Thursday to rocket fire from Gaza and, in a significant escalation, an unusual barrage of nearly three dozen rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his Security Cabinet for a three-hour meeting late Thursday, and his office put out a short statement saying a series of decisions had been made.
“Israel’s response, tonight and beyond, will extract a heavy price from our enemies,” Netanyahu said in the statement. It did not elaborate.
Almost immediately, Palestinian militants in Gaza began firing rockets into southern Israel, setting off air raid sirens across the region. Loud explosions could be heard in Gaza from the Israeli strikes, as outgoing rockets whooshed into the skies toward Israel.
The airstrikes came after militants in Lebanon fired some 34 rockets into Israel, forcing people across Israel’s northern frontier into bomb shelters and wounding at least two people.
The Israeli military said the rocket fire on its northern and southern fronts was carried out by Palestinian militants in connection to this week’s violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police stormed into the building with tear gas and stun grenades to confront Palestinians barricaded inside on two straight days. The violent scenes from the mosque…
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