Two Israeli sisters were killed and their mother seriously wounded in a gun battle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, hours after Israel shelled Gaza and Lebanon following rocket fire by Palestinian militants.
The escalation of the conflict since Israeli police clashed with Palestinians inside the Jerusalem mosque prompted calls for restraint from the international community, but the Israeli military vowed it would not allow Palestinian factions to open a new front in Lebanon.
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A barrage of more than 30 rockets fired from Lebanon on Thursday marked the biggest escalation since Israel waged a 34-day war with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in 2006.
The Israeli army said it had launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of Friday’s shooting. He said the women were shot at in a car as they were passing through the Hamra crossing in the northern part of the Jordan Valley.
Oded Revivi, mayor of the illegal West Bank settlement Efrat, confirmed that the two dead were sisters, adding that the third seriously injured woman was their mother.
The attack came after the army carried out air strikes and a pre-dawn artillery barrage in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
In response to Thursday’s rocket fire, Israel “attacked targets, including terror infrastructure, belonging to the Hamas terror organization in southern Lebanon,” the army said, the first time Israel has confirmed an attack on Lebanese territory since April 2022. .
AFP journalists heard explosions in the Lebanese region of Tire, as well as in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli airstrikes had started before midnight. They said they heard at least three explosions, while Abu Ahmad, a resident of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, also said he “heard explosions.”
The Lebanese army said it had found and dismantled a multiple rocket launcher in an olive grove in the Marjayoun area near the border, still loaded with six rockets rigged to fire at Israel.
In Gaza, the Israeli army said it had attacked two tunnels and “two weapons manufacturing sites” belonging to Hamas “as a response to Hamas security violations in recent days.”
Israel “will not allow the Hamas terror organization to operate from inside Lebanon and holds the Lebanese state accountable for every targeted fire emanating from its territory,” it added.
Israeli emergency services reported on Thursday that a man was slightly injured by shrapnel and a woman was wounded while running towards a shelter.
For its part, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported “partial damage” to the Al-Dorra children’s hospital in Gaza City, condemning the act as “unacceptable”, while Hecht said the Israeli army was investigating the allegation.
