Israel bombs Gaza as fears grow of wider war
Israel bombed Gaza yesterday as exchanges of fire and threats over the Lebanon border raised fears of a wider war.
Five municipal workers died “during an Israeli bombing” of a garage in Gaza City, said Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the civil defence agency in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.
In southern Gaza, AFPTV captured an overnight strike on a residential district of Khan Yunis city. A ball of fire and sparks erupted, followed by grey smoke before residents inspected the damage in the darkness.
There were further exchanges of fire across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the clashes must not turn Lebanon into “another Gaza”.
Increased “bellicose rhetoric” from both sides risked triggering a catastrophe “beyond imagination”, he said.
Just before midnight on Thursday, Israel's army said it had “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon”.
Early yesterday, Lebanese official media reported fresh Israeli strikes in the country's south.
This came after Hezbollah said it had fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli barracks in northern Israel on Thursday in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon.
A Hezbollah operative was killed in that strike, Israel said.
The Israeli military said its jets had struck Hezbollah sites and used artillery “to remove threats in multiple areas in southern Lebanon”.
Hezbollah then said it had carried out a number of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Friday, including two using drones.
Experts are divided on the prospect of a wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s campaign to eradicate Iran-backed Hezbollah’s ally Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip. Exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel have escalated in recent weeks and the Israeli military said on Tuesday that plans for an offensive in Lebanon “were approved and validated”.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” in a war, and also threatened nearby EU member Cyprus.
The US has appealed for de-escalation. (AFP)