Israel carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon, from which two rockets were fired at Israel earlier today. 

"Army fighter jets have targeted launch sites and infrastructure from which rockets have been fired into Lebanon with the purpose of terror," the IDF wrote in a brief statement on Thursday (August 5th). .

In response to rockets launched from Lebanon at Israel today, IDF artillery forces are currently hitting targets along the Lebanese border.

- IDF (@Tsahal_IDF) August 4, 2021

The Israeli air force regularly bombs suspected positions of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip and also carries out strikes in neighboring Syria, where it targets positions of pro-Iranian elements.

But its last known airstrikes in Lebanon dated back to 2014, the IDF confirmed, and come in the wake of cross-border firefights.

Two rockets fired from Lebanon fell on Wednesday in Israel, which responded with artillery fire in the direction of its neighbor, amid heightened tensions in the region after an attack on an oil tanker in the Gulf of 'Oman - which Israel and the United States blamed on Iran.

No group has claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, carried out from southern Lebanon, where Shiite Hezbollah fighters supported by Tehran are present. 

Hezbollah TV station Al Manar said Israeli planes carried out two raids in the vicinity of the town of Mahmoudiyah, near the Israeli border.

"Show maximum restraint"

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has called for a "strong message" to be sent to UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon deployed in the south of the country on the border with Israel, according to the Ministry of Defense.

Present in Lebanon since 1978, UNIFIL has been monitoring the Israeli border since 2006 in coordination with the Lebanese army and ensuring the application of Security Council resolution 1701, adopted after the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a very Lebanese armed movement. influential in southern Lebanon who did not comment on the shootings.

The commander of the UN mission, General Stefano Del Col, called on "the parties" to "cease the fire and exercise maximum restraint to avoid an escalation, especially on this solemn anniversary," said Wednesday. UNIFIL in a press release, on the first anniversary of the explosion at the port of Beirut.

On August 4, 2020, the explosion of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate left 214 dead, more than 6,500 injured and devastated several neighborhoods in the capital of Lebanon, a country mired in the worst socio-economic crisis in its history.

With AFP and Reuters

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