Two killed in West Bank after Israel strikes Lebanon, Gaza

Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza Strip Friday. PIC/AP

Israel conducted rare airstrikes in Lebanon and continued bombarding the Gaza Strip on Friday, an escalation that sparked fears of a broader conflict following violence over Jerusalem's most sensitive site.

With tensions running high across Israel and the region, an alleged Palestinian shooting attack near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank killed two women in their 20s and seriously wounded a 45-year-old, Israeli medics said. The attack, coming after weeks of unusually heightened unrest in the West Bank, suggested that the recent tensions in Jerusalem could be spilling over to the occupied territory.

Even as quiet returned to Israel's northern and southern borders, the early morning Israeli strikes on Lebanon - which analysts described as the most serious border violence since Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon's Hezbollah militants - threatened to push the confrontation into a new phase. Israeli strikes came in retaliation for a major barrage of rockets from Lebanon the day before, after Israeli police raids at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem spiraled into unrest and sparked outrage across the Arab world.

Although the Israeli military was quick to emphasize that its warplanes struck sites belonging to only Palestinian militant groups, the barrage risks drawing in Israel's bitter foe Hezbollah, which holds sway over much of southern Lebanon and has in the past portrayed itself as a defender of the Palestinians and the contested city of Jerusalem.

The Israeli military said it was clear everyone wanted avoid a full-blown conflict. "Quiet will be answered with quiet," Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military told reporters.

But violence again broke out at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Friday.

Also read: Rockets fired from Gaza as Israeli forces storm Al-Aqsa

The Israeli military said that Palestinian militants in Gaza had so far fired 44 rockets from Gaza, only 23 of which crossed into Israeli territory. The others either failed to launch, fell into the Mediterranean Sea, or were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome aerial defense system, the military said. There were no reports of Israeli casualties.

The Israeli military said it pounded Gaza with more airstrikes, hitting 10 targets that it described as underground tunnels, along with weapons production and development sites belonging largely to the Hamas militant group. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Gaza, but the Palestinian Health Ministry said that one of the strikes caused some damage to a children's hospital in Gaza City.

44
No. of rockets fired from Gaza as per Israeli military

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