Beirut, Lebanon – Lebanon’s Hizbollah fired on Saturday over 60 rockets at an Israeli military base, the group said, describing the barrage as a response to the killing of Hamas’s deputy leader in Beirut.
“As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Aruri… the Islamic resistance (Hizbollah) targeted the Meron air control base with 62 various types of missiles,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
The Israel-Lebanon border has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between Israeli forces and Hamas ally Hizbollah, since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
Aruri’s killing on Tuesday in a Hizbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, which a US defense official has told AFP was carried out by Israel, has raised fears of further escalation.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, the first on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began last year.
The Israeli military said it had identified around 40 rocket launches from Lebanese territory on Saturday morning, adding in a statement that Israeli forces struck a cell responsible for some of the launches shortly thereafter.
Air raid sirens went off in towns and cities across northern Israel, later also blaring in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
In a speech on Friday, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that the group will respond swiftly “on the battlefield” to Aruri’s killing.
Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed 175 people in Lebanon, including 129 Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.
In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.