The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah fired missiles at a military base in Israel this Saturday 12th, as Israeli troops fought in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.
Alarm sirens sounded in central Israel this Saturday and the Israeli army said it had intercepted a “projectile fired from Lebanon”.
Hezbollah, whose leader and a long list of senior officials have died in Israeli bombings since the start of the war in Lebanon, said on Saturday it attacked a military base south of the city of Haifa with missiles.
Hezbollah fighters targeted “an explosive materials factory,” the pro-Iranian group said in a statement.
According to a correspondent from AFPthe Israeli Army bombed southern Lebanon, where three weeks ago it began a vast air and land offensive against Hezbollah.
The military spokesman for the Arabic-speaking public, Avichay Adraee, ordered residents of southern Lebanon this Saturday “not to return to their homes” for their “own safety.”
The shooting coincides with the holiday of Yom Kippur, which Israel celebrates from Friday night until sundown this Saturday.
During this “day of atonement”, which is the most important holiday in Judaism, the country comes to a standstill: borders, airports and most businesses remain closed and public transport is suspended.
But with the country at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, both allied and supported by Iran, Israeli troops continued fighting on its northern and southern borders amid a wave of criticism because four peacekeepers UN soldiers were injured in Lebanon on Thursday.
Hours before the start of Yom Kippur, Israel faced a wave of international condemnation following an “attack” on a position of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Unifil.
The Israeli Army assured that it fired in the direction of a “threat” near the position of UN forces and assured that it is carrying out an investigation to clarify what happened.
Reprisal against Iran
After the Yom Kippur holiday, attention is likely to focus once again on the expected retaliation against Iran, which launched some 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised this week that his country’s response would be “deadly, precise and surprising.”
However, the administration of the US president, Joe Bidenpresses for the Israeli response to be “proportional” and not push the region into a wider war.
Biden urged Israel to avoid attacking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.
Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on the border between the two countries a year ago to support its ally Hamas, at war in the Gaza Strip with Israel after the Islamist movement’s attack on October 7, 2023 on Israeli soil.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified the military campaign against pro-Iranian militia and a week later began ground incursions into Lebanon.
More than 2,100 people have died in Lebanon in a year, more than 1,200 of them since bombing intensified three weeks ago, according to a tally by AFP based on official figures.
Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday appealed to the UN Security Council for an “immediate” ceasefire.
According to the UN, there are almost 700,000 people displaced within Lebanon and around 400,000 people have fled to Syria.
Bombings in Gaza
Although in recent weeks Israel has concentrated most of its operations on the Lebanese front, it continues to bomb the Gaza Strip in its fight against Hamas, after more than a year of fighting in Palestinian territory.
Currently, the Israeli Army surrounds the city of Jabaliya, in the north of the Strip, where it accuses Hamas of reconstituting its forces.
Gaza Civil Defense reported 30 deaths on Friday in a series of Israeli bombings in that city.
A journalist from AFP also reported gunshots and explosions in the Al Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City this Saturday.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted after the unprecedented attack by Islamist militiamen on Israeli soil, on October 7, 2023, which caused the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 are still detained in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the Israeli Army.
In response, Israel launched a relentless offensive into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, where 42,175 Palestinians have diedmost of them civilians, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which the UN considers reliable.
