Hezbollah claims launching rockets at northern Israel

BEIRUT – Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has said it launched dozens of rockets at northern Israel in response to the killing of two civilians in a strike blamed on Israel in Lebanon’s south.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group and Israel have exchanged regular fire in the south of Lebanon since October.

Hezbollah fighters fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at northern Israel “as part of the response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on... civilian homes, specifically the horrific massacre in Hanin and the killing and injuring of civilians,” the group said in a statement.

Local rescuers and official media said an Israeli strike on a house in Hanin, near the Israeli border, killed two members of the same family.

A civil defense source told AFP that “a woman in her 50s and a 12-year-old girl have been killed” in the strike, while several injured people from the same family were taken to hospital.

Lebanon’s National News Agency confirmed the deaths and said that six others were wounded in the strike.

“Enemy warplanes carried out a raid on a two-storey house, firing two airto-surface missiles and completely destroying it,” the NNA said, adding that the building housed “a family that had not left... since Israeli attacks started”.

Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since near-daily skirmishes began following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered war in Gaza.

But Hezbollah has stepped up its rocket attacks on Israeli positions in recent days.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah said it had launched drone attacks on northern Israeli bases in retaliation for the killing of a fighter Israel described as “significant.”