IDF Strikes Targets in Lebanon after Rocket Launch

The rocket exploded adjacent to the border in Israeli territory, said the IDF.

By JNS

The Israeli military carried out strikes against a rocket launch site in Lebanon on Thursday.

IDF soldiers arrived near the border town of Ghajar after reports of an explosion in the area. It was learned that a projectile was fired from Lebanese territory and had exploded next to the border in Israeli territory.

Arab channels said Palestinian factions, angered by this week’s IDF operation in Jenin, fired the rockets.

The IDF responded with 15 rounds of artillery fire.

Jets were heard overhead in southern Lebanon.

The military correspondent for Israel’s Walla news site reported that “the IDF attacked empty land in southern Lebanon.”

According to Lebanese media reports, the rocket fire emanated from Bastra, located between Kafr Shuba and Al Mari in southern Lebanon.

The IDF Home Front Command did not issue any special instructions for Israelis living close to the frontier.

Citing three “security sources,” the Reuters news agency initially reported that two rockets were fired from southern Lebanon, with one of them hitting Lebanese territory and the second striking near a “disputed area at the border.”

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the rocket fire.

A source in the Lebanese army intelligence services told the Arabic-language news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the incident is under investigation. A source from the United Nations’ peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that they were attempting to verify that a missile was fired from Lebanon towards Israel, adding that “nothing is clear yet.”

Tensions have been high along the border after the Hezbollah terror group pitched two tents on the Israeli side of the demarcation line. It was reported on Sunday that the group removed one of the tents.

The outpost was set up in early April, north of the border fence but on the Israeli side of the U.N.-marked Blue Line in the Mount Dov region. The position, located across from an Israeli military base, was reportedly manned by three to eight armed terrorists.

The move comes after Jerusalem reportedly sent a message to Hezbollah threatening a confrontation unless the outpost was removed.

Thursday’s rocket launch also comes amid tensions in Judea and Samaria and follows a major counterterror operation in Jenin in the early hours of Monday, including the entry into the Samaria city of significant ground forces.

More than 1,000 IDF troops participated in the two-day raid, in what is believed to be the largest deployment in Judea and Samaria in two decades.

A Palestinian terrorist drove his car into pedestrians at a bus stop on Pinchas Rosen Street in Tel Aviv’s northeastern Ramat Hahayal neighborhood on Tuesday.

He then got out of the vehicle and stabbed additional victims with a sharp object, police said. There were seven victims in total.

The Israeli military struck Hamas weapons-making facilities in the Gaza Strip overnight Tuesday, in response to a barrage of rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Five rockets were fired into Israeli territory from Gaza, all of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system. Shrapnel from one of the rockets struck a home in Sderot, causing damage.

In April, the Gaza Strip-based Hamas fired 34 rockets from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, in the biggest attack emanating from the Hezbollah-controlled country since the 2006 war.

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