Two Rockets Fired into Israel from Lebanon
Two rockets fired from Lebanon hit northern Israel overnight, Israeli police said on Tuesday, in the second such incident since Israel”s summer 2006 war with Hizbullah that underscored cross-border tensions on the eve of
U.S. President George Bush”s visit to the region.
“Two 107-mm Katyusha rockets were fired overnight into northern Israel,” Avi Edri, a spokesman for the Israeli northern district police, told AFP.
One of the rockets hit a house in the border town of Shlomi, damaging a balcony, while the second one crashed on to the street nearby, police said. There were no reports of injuries.
The Israeli army had initially said an old rocket had exploded.
In June, two rockets fired by a previously unknown group, the Jihadi Badr Brigades – Lebanon Branch, fell in Israel, causing minor damage but no casualties.
Israeli military officials said it appeared the same group was responsible for Tuesday”s attack, although there was no claim of responsibility.
A senior military officer in Beirut told The Associated Press that the Israeli report was “baseless and completely fabricated.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident with the media.
Yasmina Bouziane, a spokeswoman for U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon said the force had a team on the ground looking into the report. “In the meantime, we can”t confirm or deny” the Israeli claims, she said.
The firings were not reported until hours later because the residents of the town thought the noise from the explosions was thunder, Shlomi mayor Gabi Naama told army radio.
“The rockets fell around 2 am (midnight GMT) and were fired from southern Lebanon,” he said. “In the beginning residents thought the explosions were thunder.”
In Lebanon, a government security source said it currently had no information concerning the rockets.
A Hizbullah official — with which Israel fought a 34-day war in July-August 2006 — said the group “had no information on this subject.”
Israel launched a massive military campaign against Hizbullah on July 12, 2006, after the Shiite group seized two soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid.
During the conflict Hizbullah launched nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel despite a massive air and ground bombing campaign across southern Lebanon by the Israeli army, considered the Middle East”s most powerful.
The war, which ended on August 14 under a U.N.-brokered ceasefire, killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The rockets fell a day before Bush was to arrive in Israel at the start of a regional tour that will also take him to the Palestinian territories and a string of allied Arab countries.
The visit is aimed at bolstering recently revived peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and at shoring up support for Washington”s opposition to Iran”s controversial nuclear program despite a recent U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran had abandoned its clandestine atomic weapon program in 2003.