Second rocket was also launched from southern Lebanon, according to local media reports, after Israeli raid on Al-Aqsa.
The Israeli army has said that it has intercepted a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon a day after Israeli police attacked Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque for two nights in a row.
“A rocket was fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory and was successfully intercepted,” an initial army statement said on Thursday as Israeli media reported a “salvo” of projectiles had been fired – the first fired from Lebanon since last April.
Warning sirens had sounded in the town of Shlomi and in Moshav Betzet in northern Israel, the army added.
A second rocket attack was also launched from southern Lebanon, followed by a burst of Israeli artillery fire back across the border, two Lebanese security sources told the Reuters news agency.
The rockets, however, were reportedly fired by Palestinian factions, and not the powerful Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Iran-backed Hezbollah controls security in southern Lebanon, and has fought against Israel in wars in the past.
Palestinian refugee camps and armed factions are also located in southern Lebanon.
The MDA ambulance service in Israel said three people were injured in the rocket fire, including a 19-year-old man with shrapnel injuries in mild condition and a 60-year-old woman injured while running to a nearby shelter. Several others were treated for shock.
There was no immediate comment from Lebanon’s army or the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
In response to the rocket fire, Israel struck targets in southern Lebanon, said Lebanon’s National News Agency without reporting any casualties.
According to the Lebanese report, Israeli artillery fired “several shells from its positions on the border” towards the outskirts of two villages after the launch of “several Katyusha type rockets” at Israel.
The Israeli military, however, told AFP that it had not retaliated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “receiving continuous updates about the security situation and will conduct an assessment with the heads of the security establishment,” his office said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came amid attacks by Israeli forces on Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa this week, and led to regional and global condemnation of Israel.
Gaza rockets
On another border – the one with the besieged Gaza Strip – Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into southern Israel for a second day in a row, according to the Israeli military.
No casualties were reported in Thursday’s early morning rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
The rocket fire came after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City for a second night on Thursday, preventing Palestinian worshippers from entering the mosque for dawn prayers.
In an earlier Israeli raid in the early hours of Wednesday, Israeli forces attacked worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque. At least 12 Palestinians were injured and more than 400 others detained on the eve of the 15th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
A few hours later, dozens of Israeli settlers entered the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under the protection of the Israeli police. In recent years, large groups of ultranationalist Jews have regularly visited the site with police escorts, something the Palestinians view as a provocation.
Following Wednesday’s raid, Israeli planes attacked multiple sites in Gaza, hitting targets at two sites west of the city and in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the coastal enclave. Israeli authorities said the attack came in response to four missiles fired earlier on Wednesday from Gaza, which were, in turn, in response to the police raid on Al-Aqsa.
A group of young men had also headed toward the barrier separating Gaza from Israel to the east and set fire to rubber tires and staged a sit-in to protest the crack down on worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Also on Wednesday, large crowds rallied across the Gaza Strip to demand protection for worshippers at the site. The rallies, which were called for by Hamas – the group that rules the coastal enclave – and other Palestinian factions, took place after Ramadan night prayers.
Protesters raised Palestinian flags and pictures of Al-Aqsa mosque as they chanted slogans in support of the Mourabitoun – a group of Palestinian worshippers who characterise themselves as Al-Aqsa’s defenders.
Two Palestinian factions, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, said in a statement that any “attempts [by Israel] to change the status quo in Al-Aqsa Mosque, or to Judaise the site, would ignite an unprecedented war on all fronts, especially from the Gaza Strip.”
Source: Aljazeera