Tel Aviv has launched five missiles at Lebanon claiming the assault was in retaliation to rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns.
According to Israeli officials four rockets landed on northern Israel early on Thursday, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rockets landed around the town of Nahariya, 8 km (5 miles) south of the Lebanese border, leaving two people slightly injured. Tel Aviv claims the rockets were launched from southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, however, says it is not responsible for the alleged firing of rockets onto Israel from Lebanon.
An army spokesperson said that following the attack the Israeli military launched missiles onto Lebanon in what it described as ‘retaliatory’ fire.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar television and Lebanese officials announced that five mortar rounds had landed on the Lebanese soil near the southern border with Israel. However, the artillery landed on desert areas causing no damage or casualties, Press TV’s correspondent reported from Beirut.
Israeli warplanes breached Lebanon’s airspace following the incident, conducting overflights over southern Lebanon.
This is while Israeli media say the rocket attacks were most likely fired by Palestinian groups in retaliation for the 13-day-long Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.
Radio and television reports cited unnamed military sources saying the incident was likely to be an ‘isolated attack’.
The Islamic Hamas movement has also denied the reports that it was behind the shelling. “We cannot blame any Palestinian faction and we don’t know who fired the rockets,” said Hamas spokesman in Lebanon, Raafat Morra.
“Hamas is pursuing its combat inside Palestine and our principle is not to use any other Arab soil to respond to the occupation. This is our firm policy,” he said.
“Basically what is happening is the fault of Israel because it is impossible to contain the Arab and Islamic world after the Gaza massacre.”
