Rocket fire from Lebanon killed five people in northern Israel. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Rocket fire from Lebanon killed five people in northern Israel on Thursday (October 31, 2024), including four foreign workers, in the deadliest such attack since Israel’s invasion earlier this month.

The attack came as senior U.S. diplomats were in the region to push for cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East in the Biden administration’s final months.

The Hezbollah militant group has been firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel, and drawing retaliatory strikes, since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies backed by Iran.

The conflict along the border escalated into a full-blown war last month when Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his deputies. Israeli ground forces pushed into Lebanon at the start of October.

The Metula regional council reported Thursday’s attack, without detailing the number or type of projectiles used. The nationalities of the workers were also not immediately known.

Metula, Israel’s northernmost town which is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides, has suffered heavy damage from rockets. The town’s residents evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain.

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities had put them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.

Agricultural areas along Israel’s border, where much of the country’s orchards are located, are closed military areas that can only be entered with official permission.

Hezbollah’s newly named top leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a video statement Wednesday that the militant group will keep fighting Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it deems acceptable. He said it has recovered from a series of setbacks in recent months, including attacks using explosive pagers and walkie-talkies that was widely blamed on Israel.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more areas of southern Lebanon, as airstrikes in different parts of the country killed eight people, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

Israel has warned people to evacuate from large areas of the country, including major cities in the south and east. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced since the escalation in September.

Thousands of people have fled from Baalbek, the main city in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, and surrounding areas after Israeli evacuation warnings and aerial bombardment on Wednesday.

Firefighters work as they put out a fire at a residential building, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, October 9, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli emergency responders said two persons were killed on Wednesday (October 9, 2024) in a rocket attack on the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, as the Army and Lebanon’s Hezbollah exchanged fire along the border.

“We found a man and a woman aged around 40 years old, unconscious and injured by shrapnel,” said emergency service provider Magen David Adom in a statement.

“We carried out medical examinations, but their injuries were serious and we had to declare them dead on the spot.”

The incident is the first involving civilian deaths since Israel sent ground troops into southern Lebanon and began targeting Hezbollah positions with regular air strikes on Beirut.

Kiryat Shmona has been declared a closed military zone because of its proximity to the Lebanese border, and is a frequent target of Hezbollah rocket salvos.

The Israeli military said approximately 20 projectile launches were identified crossing from Lebanon after air raid sirens were activated in Kiryat Shmona.

Israel expanded operations in Lebanon nearly a year after Hezbollah began cross-border fire in support of its ally, Hamas, following the Palestinian group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

While battling Hamas in Gaza, Israel has vowed to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah fire to return home.

Hezbollah on Wednesday (October 9, 2024) said its fighters targeted Israeli forces in a south Lebanon border village, shortly after saying Israeli soldiers tried to advance in the area.

Hezbollah fighters “bombed… a gathering of Israeli enemy troops in… Mais al-Jabal with artillery shells”, the Iran-backed group said, after earlier saying that clashes were ongoing after Israeli troops tried to advance in the area “from several directions”.

Dozens of rockets were fired from the blockaded Gaza Strip towards Israel on Saturday, an AFP journalist in the Palestinian territory said, as sirens warning of incoming fire blared in Israel.

The rocket fire was launched from multiple locations in Gaza starting at 06:30 am (0330 GMT), the AFP journalist reported.

The Israeli army warned of sirens across the country’s south and central areas for more than an hour, urging the public to stay near bomb shelters.

The military also said “a number of terrorists have infiltrated into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip,” without providing further information.

A 70-year-old woman was in critical condition and another person was trapped after a rocket hit a building in central Israel, the Magen David Adom emergency services said.

In a separate incident, medics said a 20-year-old man was hurt moderately from shrapnel.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the premier will shortly convene security chiefs over the violence.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire.

– Earlier border protests –

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza since 2007 after the Hamas militant group took power.

Palestinian militants and Israel have fought several devastating wars since.

The latest fire follows a period of heightened tensions in September, when Israel closed the border to Gazan workers for two weeks.

The shutdown of the crossing came as Palestinian protest rocked the heavily-militarised border.

Protesters had resorted to burning tyres and throwing rocks and petrol bombs at Israeli troops, who have responded with tear gas and live bullets.

Critics had slammed the border closure as collective punishment against thousands of Palestinian workers, who have far greater earning potential in Israel than Gaza, where unemployment is rife.

Resuming their passage on September 28 had raised hopes of calming the situation in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

In May, an exchange of Israeli air strikes and Gaza rocket fire resulted in the deaths of 34 Palestinians and one Israeli.

So far this year at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners have been killed in the conflict, including combatants and civilians on both sides, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

The vast majority of fatalities have occurred in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict.

There has been a rise in army raids, Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis and Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and their property.

Several far-right Israeli ministers live in settlements in the West Bank, which are deemed illegal under international law.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)