Early on Friday, Israel launched rare strikes in southern Lebanon while continuing to bomb targets in the Gaza Strip. The situation marks a significant escalation in the region, which follows violence this week at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

The fighting erupted during a period of heightened religious fervor, with Jews celebrating the Passover holiday and Muslims marking the Ramadan holy month. In 2021, a similar escalation triggered an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, the Associated Press reported.

The strikes in southern Lebanon on Friday followed the firing of almost three dozen rockets at Israel by militants from the same region the day before. This caused property damage and injured two people. The Israeli military claimed that it targeted installations of Hamas in southern Lebanon.

Reporters from the Associated Press in the area said that several missiles fired by Israeli warplanes hit an open field in the town of Qalili, near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh, close to the southern city of Tyre.

Other missiles struck a bridge and power transformer in the nearby town of Maaliya, and a farm on the outskirts of Rashidiyeh, killing several sheep. No human deaths were reported.

Written by staff