JERUSALEM/ BEIRUT/ ISTANBUL:
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel and its arch-foe said it had struck a “terrorist cell” in retaliation, as top US and EU diplomats visited the region to seek ways to halt spillover from the war.
Shortly after rocket sirens sounded across northern Israel, the Israeli military said that “approximately 40 launches from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel were identified”. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European Union’s senior diplomat Josep Borrell were both in the region on separate diplomatic missions to stop the three-month-old Gaza war spilling over into Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Israel and Hezbollah often trade fire across the Lebanese border, the West Bank is seething with emotion and the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen seem determined to continue attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes until Israel stops bombarding Gaza.
Hezbollah said it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a “preliminary response” to the killing of Hamas’ deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday.
Tensions have been especially high since Arouri was killed by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hamas’ Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
Israel’s military said it had responded to the rocket attacks with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strike on “the terrorist cell responsible for the launches toward the area of Metula”.
Israeli fighter jets and troops also struck a series of Hezbollah targets in the areas of Ayta ash Shab, Yaroun, and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon, it said, hitting a launch post, military sites, and “terrorist infrastructure”.
Lebanon’s Jama’a Islamiya said later on Saturday it had also fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, in the third operation claimed by the hardline Sunni Muslim group since Oct. 7.
WESTERN DIPLOMACY
Blinken was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
During two hours of talks in Istanbul, Blinken discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign ministry said.
A US official said Blinken then held talks with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Turkey, which unlike most of its NATO allies does not class Hamas as a terrorist organisation, has offered to mediate in the Gaza conflict.
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