Israel strikes Hezbollah in response to rocket fire in most significant flare-up of tensions since ceasefire

(CNN) — Israel’s military carried out multiple waves of deadly airstrikes across Lebanon targeting suspected Hezbollah sites on Saturday, as tensions flare again in the region.

At least seven people have been killed, including a child, and 40 others injured in Saturday’s strikes, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered a “second wave” of attacks on southern and eastern Lebanon on Saturday evening local time in response to Hezbollah rocket fire toward Israel and “in continuation of the first wave of attacks this morning,” according to a statement released by the prime minister’s office.

“The Lebanese government is responsible for everything that happens on its territory,” the statement added.

The day’s barrages mark the most significant eruption of violence between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah since a ceasefire brought uneasy calm to the border.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its latest strikes targeted “Hezbollah command centers, infrastructure sites, terrorists, rocket launchers, and a weapons storage facility.” It said it was responding to at least five projectiles fired from within Lebanon toward Israel; three were intercepted by the Israeli air force and two did not cross the border.

“We promised security to the Galilee communities – and that is exactly what will happen,” Katz said in a statement Saturday, referring to inhabitants of northern Israel.

Hezbollah has denied any involvement, saying it was committed to the truce, and accused Israel of using the rocket fire as a “pretext” to attack Lebanon.

The Lebanese military, which is investigating the incident, said it had found and dismantled “three primitive rocket launchers in the area north of the Litani River.”

Lebanon’s presidency has condemned “attempts to drag once again into a cycle of violence,” saying President Joseph Aoun had instructed the army to protect the country’s citizens, as well as probing the rocket attacks.

A shaky truce

Before the truce, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged cross-border attacks for 13 months in the wake of the Gaza conflict. Israel launched an intense ground and aerial campaign in September last year, decimating the militant group’s leadership.

Israel continues to maintain a military presence at five locations in the south of Lebanon, despite agreeing to withdraw as part of a ceasefire deal, struck in November last year.

The deal brought a significant reduction in more than a year of cross-border strikes and put an end to months of a full-scale war.

The last time Israel accused the Lebanese armed group of firing projectiles across the border was in early December.

The latest escalation comes after Israel restarted military operations in Gaza earlier in the week, putting an end to a fragile truce in the Palestinian enclave that had largely held since January.

Israeli fire has killed at least 634 people and injured more than 1,170 others in Gaza since the fighting resumed, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

On Sunday, Hamas political leader Salah al-Bardawil was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his tent in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, alongside his wife, the group said.

The UN’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said it was “alarmed” by the Saturday-morning escalation in cross-border violence, calling on all sides to “uphold their commitments.”

“We strongly urge all parties to avoid jeopardizing the progress made, especially when civilian lives and the fragile stability observed in recent months are at risk,” it said in a statement.

“Any further escalation of this volatile situation could have serious consequences for the region.”

CNN’s Lauren Izso and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to the report

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