Israel army pounds Lebanon and Gaza with air strikes
The Israel army has carried out air strikes on marks of the Palestinian militant mass Hamas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The military told the strikes were a reply to a barrage of 34 rockets shot from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday, which it accused of Hamas.
Israel army fires missiles on Lebanon and Gaza as a reply:
Militants in Gaza shot dozens more missiles after the strikes started.
Tensions are increased following two nights of Israeli police attacks at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem before this week. The attacks began fierce confrontations with Palestinians inside the mosque, Islam’s third most sacred site, and provoked anger across the region.
Hamas did not accept that it fired the missiles from Lebanon, which was a massive barrage in 17 years. But its chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was visiting Beirut then, told Palestinians would not “sit with their arms crossed” in the face of an Israeli attack.
Overnight, there were two or three blasts near the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee base, 5km (3 miles) south of the Lebanese coastal metropolis of Tyre.
Lebanese press also reported strikes on the outskirts of the town of al-Qulaila, just 4km further south. Photos appeared to show that a small bridge was demolished.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote that its warplanes hit “terrorist infrastructures belonging to Hamas” in Lebanon.
“The IDF will not let the Hamas terrorist organization run from within Lebanon and hold the state of Lebanon liable for every run fire originating from its territory,” it said.
Hamas said it firmly blamed “the heinous Zionist attack against Lebanon in the vicinity of Tyre at dawn today [Friday]”.
In Gaza, around 10 Hamas targets were struck, including a shaft for an underground area to make weapons, three other weapons workshops and an undercover “terrorist underpass”, the IDF said.
