May 5, 2024
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel unleashed rare airstrikes on Lebanon and continued bombarding the Gaza Strip on Friday, an escalation that sparked fears of a broader conflict following days of violence over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
Later Friday, there were signs that both sides were trying to keep the hostilities in check. Fighting on Israel's northern and southern borders subsided after dawn, and midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem passed peacefully. But two women were killed in a Palestinian attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank near an Israeli settlement just hours later.
The early morning Israeli strikes followed an unusually large rocket barrage fired at Israel from southern Lebanon — what analysts described as the most serious cross-border violence since Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants. The violence erupted after Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week, sparking unrest in the contested capital and outrage across the Arab world.
The Israeli strikes seemed designed to avoid drawing in the Iran-backed Shiite group, which Israel considers its most immediate threat. The Israeli military said its warplanes struck infrastructure belonging to Palestinian militants that it accused of firing the nearly three dozen rockets that slammed into open areas and northern Israeli towns on Thursday. Nonetheless, the Israeli military said it believed the Palestinian militants acted with the knowledge of Hezbollah, which holds sway over much of southern Lebanon.
There were no reports of serious casualties, but several residents of the southern Lebanese town of Qalili, including Syrian refugees, said they were lightly wounded.
“I immediately gathered my wife and children and got them out of the house,” said Qalili resident Bilal Suleiman, who was jolted awake by the bombing.
A flock of sheep was also killed when the Israeli missiles struck an open field near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh, according to an Associated Press photographer. Other airstrikes hit a bridge and power transformer in the nearby town of Maaliya and damaged an irrigation system providing water to orchards in the area.
In the Gaza Strip, Israel's military pounded what it said were weapons production sites and underground tunnels belonging to Hamas, the militant group ruling the Palestinian enclave.
After the retaliatory strikes, Israelis living along the southern border returned home from bomb shelters. Most missiles that managed to cross into Israeli territory hit open areas, but one landed in the nearby town of Sderot, sending shrapnel slicing into a house.
There were no reports of casualties on either side of the southern border.
The Israeli military said everyone wanted avoid a full-blown conflict. “Quiet will be answered with quiet,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military.
Tensions remained high in the region. In the West Bank, two sisters in their 20s were killed and their 45-year-old mother was seriously wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack near an Israeli settlement in the Jordan Valley, Israeli medics and officials said. The three victims were residents of the Israeli settlement of Efrat, near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, said Oded Revivi, the mayor of the settlement. The girls' father was driving in another car behind his wife and daughters and witnessed the attack, Revivi added.
The Israeli military said it was searching for those behind the attack, setting up roadblocks in the area. No militant group immediately claimed responsibility. But Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem hailed the attack “in retaliation for the crimes committed by Israel in the West Bank and the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
The unrest comes at a delicate time for Jerusalem's Old City, which on Friday was teeming with pilgrims from around the world. The Christian faithful retraced the route Jesus is said to have taken for Good Friday, Jews celebrated the weeklong Passover holiday and Muslims prayed and fasted for Ramadan.
