Hezbollah shells Israeli troops in northern Israel

BEIRUT

The Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on the Israeli troops deployed in northern Israel on Monday.

In a brief statement, the group said it fired a barrage of rockets at Israeli soldiers in the Kiryat Shmona settlement in northern Israel.

An Israeli military statement confirmed that some 30 rockets were fired from Lebanese territory towards the Galilee region in northern Israel.

The army said some of the rockets were intercepted, while others impacted open areas.

The Israeli public broadcaster KAN said two projectiles landed in open areas near the Kiryat Shmona settlement.

According to Israeli Channel 12, one of the rockets directly hit a building in the settlement, causing damage.

Israel’s national ambulance service Magen David Adom said two Israelis were hurt and treated after rocket fire in northern Israel.

The rocket barrage came a day after Hezbollah carried out 17 rocket attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel on Sunday.

It also came after the assassination of Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif in an Israeli airstrike on the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood in the capital Beirut.

Israel launched an air campaign in Lebanon against what it claims are targets of the Hezbollah group in late September, in an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare over Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 3,500 people have been killed, over 14,700 injured and more than 1 million displaced by Israeli attacks since last October, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Israel expanded the conflict by launching a ground assault into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 this year.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara