Israeli jets bombed targets linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, after militants in the two territories fired a volley of rockets at Israel.
Israel’s military said it hit several targets, including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites, in the blockaded coastal strip in the early hours of Friday morning. Hours later, it bombed what it said were Hamas targets in Lebanon. Militants in Gaza fired back, setting off sirens in Israel.
Later on Friday, two Israeli women were killed and a third was seriously injured after a shooting on their car in the occupied West Bank that medics said was being investigated as a “suspected terror attack”.
The violence followed days of tensions in Jerusalem after Israeli police raided the al-Aqsa mosque on consecutive nights to remove Palestinians who had been trying to stay in the compound overnight.
Footage of heavily armed Israeli forces beating Palestinians in the mosque sparked outrage in the Arab world. On Thursday militants in southern Lebanon fired 34 rockets at Israel, in the biggest barrage from the country since Israel and the Iran-backed group Hizbollah fought a 34-day war in 2006.
The volley from Lebanon injured two people and sent others in northern Israel fleeing to bomb shelters.
Palestinian media said a child in Gaza was “moderately” injured in the Israeli strikes. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
An Israeli defence official said on Friday morning that Israel was not seeking further escalation. “If they stop firing, then it’s finished,” the official said.
In a sign of efforts to avoid a broader conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, whose powerful Iran-backed paramilitary dominates southern Lebanon, Israeli officials stressed that they believed that Hamas, not Hizbollah, was behind the rocket fire from southern Lebanon.
The Israeli strikes targeted open fields in Qlayleh, Ras al-Ein and the areas surrounding the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp, Al Manar TV, Hizbollah’s mouthpiece, reported.
Militant groups in Lebanon did not return fire and the Lebanese army said it was working to dismantle another rocket launcher it found on Friday morning. On Thursday night, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati said his country “condemns and denounces” the rocket attacks. He added that Lebanon “absolutely rejects” any further escalation launched from its territory.
“The actions over the past day are dangerous and risk a serious escalation,” the UN’s peacekeeping force Unifil said. “Both sides have said they do not want a war.”
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the rocket fire from Lebanon. It came a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Lebanon for a visit. Although the visit was billed as a “private one”, he met leaders of Palestinian groups in the country, whom he called on to “unite and escalate” following Thursday’s strikes.
Hizbollah has developed increasingly close ties to Palestinian groups both inside and outside Lebanon in recent years and portrays itself as a defender of the Palestinians and of Jerusalem.
Israel’s military said on Friday morning that Israelis living in the areas around the Gaza Strip no longer needed to remain in the vicinity of bomb shelters.
However, the situation remained volatile, with Israel increasing forces on its borders with Lebanon and Gaza, and the country’s police commissioner urging all citizens with gun licences to carry weapons in the wake of the shooting attack in the West Bank.
Police also boosted numbers in Jerusalem as thousands of Muslim worshippers began to converge on al-Aqsa, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, for Friday prayers.
The compound, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism, is one of the most sensitive places in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clashes there have sparked broader conflagrations, including an 11-day war between Israel and militants in Gaza two years ago.
Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the Old City, where the al-Aqsa compound is located, since 1967.
Under the so-called status quo agreement, both Muslims and non-Muslims can visit the site, but only Muslims are allowed to pray there. In recent years, however, Jewish groups have also prayed there, stoking anxiety among Muslims that the status quo was being eroded.
Those fears have been exacerbated by the presence of ultranationalists in Israel’s hardline new government, such as security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a settler who has long called for Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said the status quo would not change, and called for calm at the site.