Rocket event in Israel on Thu 4th July 2024

Qatar tribune Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said it launched more than 200 rockets and drones targeting Israeli military positions in response to a strike that killed a senior commander of the armed group. A Hezbollah source confirmed Thursday’s barrage to Al Jazeera – the second major attack in two days – launched in retaliation for the killing of Muhammad Nimah Nasser in southern Lebanon a day earlier. Nasser, also known as “Hajj Abu Nimah”, was the third high-ranking official killed in almost nine months of cross-border fighting that erupted after Israel launched its war on Gaza. His death prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 100 rockets into Israel on Wednesday. The attack on Thursday was one of the largest so far along the Lebanon-Israel border as tensions skyrocket with the group sending exploding drones at several military bases in northern Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The Israeli military said its forces were “striking launch posts in southern Lebanon” after “numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory”, most of which were intercepted. It said “fires broke out in a number of areas in northern Israel” following the attacks. Israeli media reported a vehicle with Israeli troops inside was hit by a projectile. There were reportedly two direct strikes on two buildings, one in Acre and another north of the city. Ambulance service Magen David Adom said two women were taken to hospital in northern Israel with light injuries. Seventeen alerts were sounded over 90 minutes in different parts of the northern region, from Nahariya in the west to Golan in the east, according to the military. The uptick in fighting and charged rhetoric between Hezbollah and Israeli officials has sent United States, European, and Arab mediators scrambling to prevent a wider regional conflagration. Hezbollah says it is striking Israel in solidarity with Palestinian armed group Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people and taking about 250 others captive. In response, Israel launched a no-limits attack on Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 people – mostly children and women – forcibly displaced about two million others multiple times, and laid waste to the long-besieged coastal enclave. (Agencies)