Israel launched its biggest military strikes on Lebanon since a 34-day war in 2006, then went on to bomb targets in the Gaza Strip, marking a widening escalation in the region following violence this week at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem.
“Israel on Friday intensified airstrikes on military posts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, in response to rockets fired from the areas at several parts in Israel, escalating tensions with Palestine over the past three days after Israeli police forcibly expelled Palestinian worshippers from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.
Hamas security sources said that Israeli reconnaissance drones and fighter jets launched dozens of airstrikes on military posts and facilities that belong to the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing.
Palestinian residents told Xinhua that they heard the buzz of the fighter jets and drones hovering over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and that bombings were heard all over the coastal enclave.
Medical sources in Gaza said that no injuries were immediately reported and hospitals and clinics have declared a state of emergency and readiness to receive possible casualties.
The Al-Qassam Brigades and other minor militant groups said in separate statements that their militants fired anti-craft missiles at the Israeli jets that hovered over the Gaza Strip.
The joint Palestinian chamber of operations, which comprises several armed wings of Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, said earlier that their militants ‘are ready to confront any Israeli attack’.
‘In light of the enemy's threats to our resistance and our people in Gaza, we affirm our readiness to confront and respond with all force to any aggression and to defend our people in all places of its presence and our sanctities’, it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesman said in a press statement that sirens were turned on in southern Israel after barrages of projectiles and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip and that Israeli fighter jets bombed several Hamas posts and facilities in the southern, central, western and northern Gaza Strip.
‘The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked tonight, using a remotely manned aircraft, a heavy launcher from which missiles were fired at IDF aircraft and Israeli territory’, said the spokesman.
The Israeli army on Friday confirmed that the country's air force struck southern Lebanon as Israel accused Hamas and other militant groups of being responsible for firing dozens of rockets from south Lebanon at northern Israel.
The Israeli military warned that it will not permit Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and has a smaller presence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to operate from within Lebanon, and that it ‘holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory’.
The latest escalation, which came during a sensitive holiday time as Muslims were observing the holy month of Ramadan with prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Jews were commemorating the Passover holiday, was triggered after Israeli had raided at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site to Muslims for two consecutive days, firing gas canisters and stun grenades at worshipers.
Earlier this week, militants in Gaza fired about 20 rockets at southern Israel in a response to Israeli raids at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound”. -Global Times
The Israeli strikes in Lebanon raise the risk of drawing Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, an Iranian-backed group, into the fighting.
And, with America distancing itself from the Middle East and Iran’s steady progress in its rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Tehran may see a window of opportunity within Israel's deep domestic crisis.
UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force that has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978 and has patrolled the border since the 2006 war, urged both sides to exercise restraint and avoid further escalation.
However, Hamas has stated that Israel was "responsible for this aggression and its consequences".