The Israeli army said it intercepted a rocket fired from Lebanon on Thursday (April 6th) after violence at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, where Israeli police intervened to dislodge Palestinian worshippers, prompting warnings of possible retaliation in the area.

Israel soon bombed southern Lebanon, the official Lebanese news agency ANI reported, without reporting any casualties. According to ANI, Israeli artillery fired "several shells from its border positions" on the outskirts of two villages in southern Lebanon, after launching "several Katyusha rockets" into Israel.

"A rocket was fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory and was successfully intercepted," the IDF said in a statement earlier. Warning sirens sounded in the northern Israeli town of Shlomi and Moshav Betzet, the army added, suggesting that more rockets may have been fired. This shooting has not been claimed so far.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is continuously informed of developments and must conduct an assessment with the heads of security agencies," his office said.

According to emergency services, a man was lightly injured by shrapnel and a woman was injured while running for cover.

Earlier Thursday, Lebanon's pro-Iranian armed Islamist movement, Hezbollah, warned it would support "any measures" Palestinian groups might take against Israel after clashes rocked the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site.

"Solidarity" with Palestinians

"Hezbollah strongly denounces the assault carried out by the Israeli occupation forces on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and its aggression against worshippers," Hezbollah said in a statement.

"Hezbollah proclaims its full solidarity with the Palestinian people and the resistance movements (to Israel), and pledges to support them in all the measures they take to protect the worshippers and the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to deter the enemy from continuing its aggression," he added.

The Shiite party, Israel's bête noire and which effectively controls southern Lebanon, has good relations with the Palestinian Hamas movement, which rules Gaza, and with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Its Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, received leaders of both parties in March.

Two rockets were fired Wednesday night from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, after similar fire the night before which Israel had responded with strikes, amid violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Lebanon's last rocket fire into Israel was in April 2022.

Israel and Lebanon remain technically in a state of war after various conflicts and their border is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon.

In 2006, the last major confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah left more than 1,200 dead on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians, and 160 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.

The Shiite movement, considered a "terrorist organization" by many Western countries, is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its armament since the end of the civil war (1975-1990).

With AFP

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