Agence France-Presse,
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army fired into northern Lebanon on Thursday after rockets were fired at the Jewish state, an army spokeswoman told AFP.
“We carried out direct fire at the source of the rocket fire from Lebanon,” she said.
The army fired five shells, a military source told AFP without clarifying the type of ordnance used.
Several rockets hit northern Israel from Lebanon early Thursday, lightly wounding two people, officials told AFP.
“Three rockets landed in Israel fired from Lebanon,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Two people were lightly wounded, he said, adding that police sappers and bomb disposal units were working on the scene.
The rockets fell around the area of the northern town of Nahariya, where residents were called to stay inside their homes, Israeli media reported.
The rockets fell a day after the chief of Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite militia with which Israel fought a 34-day war in 2006, warned that “all possibilities” were open against Israel amid its deadly offensive in Gaza.
The last time rockets from Lebanon in northern Israel was on June 17, 2007 slamming into the northern town of Kiryat Shmona causing minor damage and no injuries.
At the time, Hezbollah denied responsibility and Israel also said Hezbollah was not involved in the attack, blamed on an unnamed Palestinian organisation.
Following Thursday's strike, a a high ranking Lebanese security official confirmed to AFP that rockets have been fired from southern Lebanon into Israel.
A Hezbollah spokesman had “no immediate confirmation” on the subject.
The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, said it was investigating.
Residents of the southern Lebanese village Tayer Harfa near the Israeli border told AFP that they heard loud explosions in the morning.
Israel and Hezbollah militia fought a 34-day war in 2006, after guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite movement seized two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid.
During the conflict, Hezbollah sent more than 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.
Israel is currently in the 13th day of a massive offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah carried out its deadly raid in 2006 two weeks into Israel's last major operation in Gaza, launched after Gaza militants seized another Israeli soldier in a raid near the Palestinian territory.
