BEIRUT, (PIC)
Two citizens in Lebanon were martyred and others were injured on Saturday afternoon in Israeli air and artillery shelling targeting southern Lebanon, threatening to collapse a fragile truce that ended a war that lasted more than a year between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the martyrdom of two Lebanese citizens, including a child, and the injury of eight others, including two children, as a result of an Israeli raid on the town of Touline.
Lebanese sources reported that the Israeli occupation army launched raids on the towns of Yuhmur and Touline in southern Lebanon in response to rocket fire targeting the Israeli settlement of Mutella.
The Israeli occupation army said in a statement on Saturday that it intercepted three rockets coming from Lebanon.
The army radio said that five rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel, three of them were intercepted and two fell in Lebanese territory, pointing out that the firing of rockets from Lebanon is the first in three months “and constitutes a serious violation by Hezbollah,” according to its description.
The Israeli occupation army radio reported that explosions were heard in the Metulla area on the border with Lebanon after sirens sounded twice.
Al Jazeera TV reported that Israeli interceptor missiles exploded in the eastern area of southern Lebanon, and that Israeli artillery shelling targeted the vicinity of the town of Yuhmur in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets announced that the occupation’s artillery targeted Harat al-Ain in the town of Yuhmur al-Shaqif, south Lebanon, before reporting heavy machine gun fire by the occupation army towards the town of Kafr Kila and the outskirts of the towns of Houla and Markeba.
The Lebanese National News Agency confirmed the explosion of Israeli interceptor missiles in the airspace of the eastern sector in southern Lebanon, adding that the occupation army is conducting a wide-scale sweep with machine guns from Hamams hill where it is stationed, amid the flight of warplanes over the eastern sector.
Israeli Army Minister, Yisrael Katz, held the Lebanese government responsible for any rocket fired from its territory, announcing that he had instructed the army to respond “appropriately” to the rocket fire.
Hezbollah had abided by the ceasefire agreement signed on November 27, while the Israeli occupation continued its violations of the agreement, carrying out raids on southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, and refusing to withdraw from five border sites. The latest violations were recorded on Friday, when a citizen was wounded after Israeli occupation forces shot him on the internal road between Kafr Kila and Adeisseh, in southern Lebanon.
