“At the moment nobody wants escalation,” Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Heckt said. “We will respond to silence with silence,” he added.
On Friday evening, Israeli aircraft attacked targets in Gaza and southern Lebanon in response to large-scale rocket fire against border settlements.
According to the newspaper policy On Thursday, 34 rockets were fired at Israel from southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli army, the Iron Dome air defense system intercepted 25. Interestingly, the Lebanese-Israeli war in 2006 lasted 34 days.
A Lebanese military source told Politico that the country’s security forces believe the rockets were fired by a Palestinian group based in Lebanon and not by members of Hezbollah. He also said there were no casualties on the Lebanese side.
In edition The Guardian recalled that over the past week, Hezbollah and its allies have been subjected to massive raids by Israeli aircraft in Syria. According to the Israeli army, the strikes were then directed against drone production workshops.
At the same time, Israel said that this time it struck neither at Lebanese facilities nor at Hezbollah facilities. Under air strikes, and in a number of artillery and armored vehicle areas, only Hamas structures fell, it is said on the airwaves France 24 .
So far, there has been no response from Hezbollah, but Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib has already said on the ministry’s Twitter page (blocked in Russia) that he is considering filing a complaint with the UN in relation to Israel’s actions. He called the strikes on the country’s territory “a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701”.
Israeli strikes on Gaza caused material damage but no one was injured, Hamas officials said.
However, already on Friday afternoon in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, a car carrying Israeli citizens came under small arms fire. According to the agency Associated Press two sisters were killed and their mother was seriously injured.
“We hold the Zionist occupiers fully responsible for the serious escalation and blatant aggression against the Gaza Strip and the consequences this will have for the region,” Hamas said in a statement to the Guardian.
Of course, such an aggravation could not go unnoticed.
“Israel has legitimate security concerns and has every right to defend itself,” State Department first deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said Thursday in Washington.
In Russia, they called for respecting UN resolutions regarding the conflict.
“Unfortunately, the process has been pushed back a long way due to many events,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Ankara on Friday. He called for dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis on the principles established by the UN.
Parties to the conflict have also called for restraint in Beijing, London and Athens.
Experts believe this escalation could lead to bigger clashes. This danger was underlined, among others, by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova.
On Wednesday, Israeli police clashed with Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
