WarSclerotic

IDF fires artillery rounds at Lebanon in response to Katyusha rockets | JPost | Israel News.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, REUTERS

12/29/2013 07:46

Nissim Malka, mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

The IDF responded with intense artillery fire toward the location from which four rockets were launched in southern Lebanon just minutes after residents of the border town of Kiryat Shmona heard loud explosions.

Army sources say that the source of the fire has been identified but that it was too soon to say which organization is responsible for the attack.

Two Katyusha rockets exploded near Kiryat Shmona, where residents reported seeing smoke rising from a fire sparked by one of the projectiles which landed on a hill overlooking the city. Two other rockets landed in Lebanese territory. No injuries or damage was reported.

Nissim Malka, Mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

Schools are functioning as they would on any normal day, and no delays were reported in the busing of children to class.

A Reuters witness in the Lebanon frontier area said more than 20 Israeli shells hit near two southern border towns.

The Israeli-Lebanese border has been largely quiet since Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fought a 34-day war in 2006.

But tension spiked this month when a Lebanese soldier killed an Israeli soldier across the border fence, after which a UN peacekeeping force met both sides to restore calm.

Officials suggested at the time that the shooting had been the isolated action of an individual.

Last August, four rockets fired from southern Lebanon targeted northern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in Acre, Nahariya and additional areas in the Western Galilee and sending frightened local residents fleeing for cover.

Two of the Katyushas crossed the border and landed in Israel, causing no casualties but some damage.

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