Israel separately traded fire with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, in a third day of cross-border salvoes amid wider regional tensions with Iran and bombed Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave.
Since a May 21 ceasefire ended 11 days of Israel-Hamas fighting, Palestinians in Gaza have sporadically launched balloons laden with incendiary material across the border, causing fires that have burned fields in Israel. Palestinians say the balloons aim to pressure Israel to ease restrictions on the coastal enclave that were tightened during the May fighting.
Balloon launches had mostly ebbed after Israel eased some restrictions on Gaza. But on Friday, balloons were again launched from Gaza, causing at least four brush fires in areas near the Israel-Gaza frontier.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the strike that targeted what the military said was a rocket launching site and a compound belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza. Hamas had no immediate comment.
The Israeli military said its air strikes were in “response to continual launches of incendiary balloons from Gaza into Israel throughout the day.”
The blazes along the Gaza frontier broke out on Friday as Israel separately traded fire over its northern border with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, in a third day of cross-border salvoes amid wider regional tensions with Iran.
Israel carried out its first air raids on Lebanese soil in years on Thursday, prompting Hezbollah to fire rockets back at Israel the following day.
Before Thursday, Israel’s last air strikes on Lebanon dated back to 2014, when warplanes struck territory near the Syrian border.
Hezbollah’s volley of rockets at Israeli positions on Friday morning prompted retaliatory shelling from Israel, prompting United Nations peacekeepers to warn of “a very dangerous situation”.
The United States on Friday urged Lebanon’s government to prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel. The 33-day conflict in the summer of 2006 killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
It ended with a UN-backed ceasefire on August 14, 2006 that saw the Lebanese army deploy along border areas.
Hezbollah is the only side not to have disarmed after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. It has long been targeted by US sanctions and blacklisted as a “terrorist” organisation, but the Shia group is also a powerful political player, with seats in Lebanon’s parliament.
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