Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Thursday, and were answered by a burst of cross-border artillery fire, amid escalating tensions following violent raids by Israeli police on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Israel said 34 rockets were fired across the border, forcing residents into bomb shelters and ratcheting up regional tensions during the Jewish Passover holiday celebrations.
It came after the widely condemned raids and the arrest of hundreds of Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem this week, as Muslims marked the month of Ramadan.
Israel’s army said its response would come after “a situational assessment” and a meeting of the country’s security cabinet.
There was no claim of responsibility, but three security sources said Palestinian factions in Lebanon, rather than the heavily armed Lebanese Hezbollah group, were believed to be responsible for the rocket fire. Israel fought a month-long war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon (Unifil) described the situation as “extremely serious” and urged restraint. It said Unifil chief Aroldo Lazaro was in contact with authorities on both sides.
Israeli broadcasters showed footage of large plumes of smoke rising above the northern town of Shlomi, and public sector broadcaster Kan said the Israel Airports Authority had closed the country’s northern airspace, including over Haifa, to civilian flights.
“I’m shaking, I’m in shock,” Liat Berkovitch Kravitz told Israel’s Channel 12 news programme, speaking from a fortified room in her house in Shlomi. “I heard a boom... it was as if it exploded inside the room.”
Mohammad al-Braim, spokesperson for the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees, praised the rocket strikes but did not claim responsibility for them.
Israel’s foreign minister tweeted: “No one should test us, we will take all necessary measures to defend our country and people.”
The compound that is home to the al-Aqsa mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam, and stands on a hilltop known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is revered as the holiest site in Judaism. Conflicting claims over the site have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war two years ago between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza.
For two nights, Palestinians have tried to barricade themselves in the mosque in protest over threats by religious Jews to sacrifice animals at the sacred site, and over the Israeli restrictions on Muslim prayers being said overnight at the site.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.
