Lebanon’s Hezbollah says fired dozens of rockets at Israeli base

BEIRUT (AFP): The Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli base in the occupied Golan Heights on Monday in retaliation for a strike in Lebanon’s east.

Earlier, Lebanese official media said three people had been wounded in an Israeli strike early Monday in the country’s east, with the Israeli army saying it had struck a Hezbollah “military compound.”

Hezbollah fighters launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” targeting “the headquarters of the Golan Division… at Nafah base,” the group said in a statement, saying it was “in response to the enemy’s attack targeting the Bekaa region.”

Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

In recent weeks Hamas-ally Hezbollah has stepped up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military has struck deeper into Lebanese territory.

“Enemy warplanes launched a strike at around 1:30 am this morning on a factory in Sifri, wounding three civilians and destroying the building,” Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.

Sifri is located in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, near the city of Baalbek, around 80 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

The Israeli army said its warplanes “struck a Hezbollah military structure… deep inside Lebanon,” referring to the location as “Safri.”

Last month, a building in Sifri was targeted in an Israeli raid, according to a source close to Hezbollah, while the Israeli army said it had targeted Hezbollah sites in Lebanon’s east.

East Lebanon’s Baalbek area is a Hezbollah stronghold and has been repeatedly struck by Israel in recent weeks.

On Sunday official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory fire by dozens of rockets toward Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.

The intensifying exchanges have stoked fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which went to war in 2006.

In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.