Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel in ‘response’ to Hamas leader’s killing

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has said it targeted a vital Israeli military post with a barrage of 62 rockets as a “preliminary response” to the killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut this week.

This comes as the European Union foreign policy chief met the Lebanese prime minister in Beirut on Saturday, and warned against Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from Israel’s war on Gaza.

“As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri … the Islamic resistance [Hezbollah] targeted the Meron air control base with 62 various types of missiles,” the Iran-aligned group said in a statement on Saturday of the attacks in northern Israel.

The Israeli military said earlier that about 40 rockets were fired towards the Meron air surveillance base and it responded by attacking a “terrorist cell” that took part in the launches. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Later on Saturday, Lebanon’s Jama’a Islamiya group said in a statement that it had fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.

Hezbollah and the Israeli army continued to exchange fire along the border area, with one Israeli attack going deep into Lebanese territory and hitting a house nearly 40km (25 miles) from the border, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Lebanon said.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said all of Lebanon would be exposed if it did not react to the killing of Hamas deputy chief al-Arouri and warned it would “certainly not go without reaction and punishment”.

Al-Arouri was assassinated in an alleged Israeli attack on Tuesday in a Hezbollah stronghold. Nasrallah has warned Israel against expanding the conflict, saying there would be “no ceilings” and “no rules” to his group’s fighting if Israel chose to launch a war on Lebanon.