Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement launched a series of rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday killing a civilian, following a deadly strike by Israel in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on Israel.
Israeli rescue teams searching a building that had been hit in the border town of Kiryat Shmona “found a 25 year old who was unconscious, with no pulse and not breathing”, and pronounced him dead at the scene, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.
Hezbollah said they fired “dozens of rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in retaliation for what it called “the massacre committed by the Zionist enemy (Israel)” in the south Lebanon village of Habariyeh.
The emergency response arm of Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanese militant group closely linked to Hamas, said “a number” of people were killed in the overnight Israeli strike in Habariyeh.
A Jamaa Islamiya official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a dozen first responders were in the centre at the time of the strike, adding that bodies were being pulled from the rubble.
The Israeli military said the target of the strike was “a military compound” and those killed were Jamaa Islamiya “terrorists”.
It said a “significant terrorist operative” and other members of the group were planning attacks against Israel at the time of the strike.
