The Al-Qassam Brigades branch in Lebanon said that the bombing came in response to the Israeli raids on Gaza.
The military wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement announced that it had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon in response to the Israeli raids on Gaza.
The Al-Qassam Brigades branch in Lebanon said, in a statement via the Telegram application, today, Monday, that it fired 16 missiles targeting the city of Nahariya, northern Israel, and the southern outskirts of the city of Haifa.
Israel said it monitored about 30 launches from Lebanon within an hour. The Israeli army posted on the X website, formerly known as Twitter, that “the IDF responded by firing artillery towards the source of the launch.”
The Al-Qassam Brigades said that the missiles came in response to “the massacres and aggression against our people in Gaza,” where the Palestinian authorities say that continuous Israeli air strikes have killed more than 10,000 people since the fighting began on October 7 after a Hamas attack on southern Israel. Which Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people.
While Gaza has been at the center of attacks so far, tensions have remained high on Israel’s border with Lebanon, where several armed groups, including the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah, have exchanged limited fire with Israeli forces for about a month.
Such cross-border exchanges led to the deaths of at least 81 people in Lebanon, including 59 Hezbollah fighters, six soldiers and two civilians on the Israeli side, according to an Agence France-Presse tally.
The Al-Qassam Brigades did not provide further details in its statement, but the firing of rockets towards Haifa is the furthest targeting from Lebanon since the beginning of the clashes along the border.
Al Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khader from Beirut said that an Israeli raid on a car on Sunday led to the killing of three children and their grandmother. Hezbollah said it responded by firing rockets at the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, killing an Israeli civilian.
“on Friday [Hezbollah] Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah promised to respond to any civilian killed in Lebanon [to] An attack in Israel led to the death of a civilian. Khidr said: “Create, if you wish, that equation.”
Analysts have expressed concern that Israel’s war on Gaza could lead to a broader regional escalation, with Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed armed groups joining the fight against Israel as humanitarian conditions in Gaza reach breaking point.
So far, both sides have managed to avoid steps that could lead to a larger confrontation, opting instead for a steady campaign of mutual bombing and missile strikes.
“Both sides are truly aware of the consequences of expanding the conflict in southern Lebanon,” Khader said.
