Jerusalem: Israel launched rare airstrikes in southern Lebanon early on Friday and pressed on with bombing targets in the Gaza Strip, marking a widening escalation of tensions following violence this week at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
The cross-border fighting erupted during a time of heightened religious fervour – when Jews are celebrating the Passover holiday and Muslims are marking Ramadan.
The strikes in southern Lebanon came a day after militants fired nearly three dozen rockets from there at Israel, wounding two people and causing some property damage. The Israeli military said it targeted installations of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, in southern Lebanon.
Several missiles fired by Israeli warplanes struck an open area near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh, close to the coastal southern city of Tyre.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon risk drawing the country’s Hezbollah militia into the fighting. The Iran-backed group, armed with thousands of rockets and missiles, holds sway over much of the south and is viewed by Israel as a bitter foe.
In recent years, Hezbollah has stayed out of other flare-ups related to al-Aqsa Mosque, which stands on a hilltop revered by Muslims and Jews. The Israeli military was careful to note in its announcement about Friday’s attack that it was targeting only sites linked to Palestinian militants.
Read the article by Fares Akram and Josef Federman in The Sydney Morning Herald.