Hezbollah conducts retaliatory strikes in north Israel after Tel Aviv attack kills Lebanon rescuers

Hezbollah announced retaliatory rocket fire targeting a town in northern Israel early Sunday, hours after Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli attack killed three civil defence personnel in the country’s south.

The Iran-backed Lebanese movement has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah said it had bombarded “Kiryat Shmona with a volley of Falaq rockets” early Sunday “in response to the enemy attacks… and particularly the attack” that killed the emergency workers in the Lebanese village of Froun.

Hezbollah usually says it targets military positions in northern Israel, while Israel has said it targets Hezbollah infrastructure and fighters in south and east Lebanon.

On Saturday, Lebanon’s health ministry said the “Israeli enemy targeting of a Lebanese civil defence team that was putting out fires sparked by the recent Israeli strikes in the village of Froun led to the martyrdom of three emergency responders”.

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Two others were wounded, one of them critically, the ministry added.

Lebanon’s civil defence said in a statement that three of its employees were killed in “an Israeli strike that targeted a firefighting vehicle after they had finished a firefighting mission”.

The health ministry statement condemned the “blatant Israeli attack that targeted a team from an official body of the Lebanese state”.

Hezbollah ally the Amal movement said two of its members were among the dead in Saturday’s strike. It said they were killed “while carrying out their humanitarian and national duty defending Lebanon and the south”.

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Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack on the emergency workers, saying in a statement that “this new aggression against Lebanon is a blatant violation of international laws… and human values”.

‘Repeated, deliberate’

Lebanon’s health ministry said the attack was “the second of its kind against an emergency team in less than 12 hours”.

Earlier Saturday, the ministry said two emergency personnel from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were wounded when “the Israeli enemy deliberately targeted” near a fire they were heading to extinguish in south Lebanon’s Qabrikha, causing their vehicle to swerve.

Several militant groups operate health centres and emergency response operations in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah had announced a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Saturday, including with Katyusha rockets and “explosives-laden drones”, some in a stated response to “Israeli enemy attacks” on south Lebanon.

The Israeli military said Saturday that it had identified “projectiles” crossing from Lebanon and intercepting some of them, adding “a number of UAVs (drones) were identified crossing from Lebanese territory”.

It said the air force struck “Hezbollah military infrastructure and a launcher” in the Qabrikha area, while its artillery targeted several other areas of south Lebanon.

The cross-border violence has killed some 614 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 138 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

A statement from Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said that “due to the (Israeli) aggression”, 27 emergency personnel and health workers have been killed and 94 others wounded since October.

Two hospitals and 21 health centres have been “targeted”, while 32 fire or ambulance vehicles have been “put out of service or partially damaged”, the statement said, urging an end to the “repeated and deliberate targeting of health workers and civilians”.