Hezbollah and Hamas have denied responsibility for the launching of at least three rockets from South Lebanon into North Israel on Thursday morning, a move that is widely interpreted as retaliation for Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an offensive on the Gaza Strip that has left over 700 dead and close to 3,200 injured. Media reports said the rocket launch was most likely the work of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), an offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that rejects any settlement with Israel and is close to Damascus.

At least three Katyusha rockets were launched from the Jebbein area in South Lebanon and struck the Nahariya area in North Israel at around 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, wounding two. Israel immediately retaliated by firing artillery shells and conducting low-altitude flights over South Lebanon.

The rocket-launching is a “clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Thursday morning.

Israeli Minister Rafi Eitan said he held Lebanese government “entirely responsible for firing of rockets into Israel,” Reuters reported.

UNIFIL, LAF on high alert

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) deployed troops south of the Litani River immediately following the attacks.

General Claudio Graziano, who heads the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mandated by UN Security Council 1701 to control the Lebanese-Israeli border area, urged both Lebanon and Israel to exercise restraint.

“Additional troops have been deployed on the ground, and patrols have been intensified across the area of operations to prevent any further incident,” UNIFIL spokesperson Yasmina Bouziane told AFP. She also said the Lebanese army had sent reinforcements to the region after the rockets were fired, prompting fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

“UNIFIL is investigating the circumstances of the incident... and the UNIFIL commander... has called for maximum restraint in order to prevent any escalation of the situation,” she told the newswire.

Claiming responsibility for attacks

While no party has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the party most likely behind them, according to information early Thursday afternoon, is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

Anwar Raja, the PFLP-GC representative in Lebanon,declined to either confirm or deny responsibility for the rocket-launching, in what is seen as retaliation against the Israeli offensive on Gaza that began on December 27.

Raja told AFP Thursday that the eventuality of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip was “open to all possibilities appear without clear prospects, especially in the absence of any international political will to deter Israel from continuing to commit its holocaust in Gaza.”
 
Raja also accused Arab regimes, which he declined to name, of “bias, complicity and sometimes even participation” in the attacks on Gaza. He said the situation “will lead to different reactions with no clear title or source,” which in turn could provoke a confrontation that extended beyond Israel to Arab capitals in the form of “clashes between the angry people and their authorities.”

Raja requested Israel and the “silent Arab official regime” to realize the possible impact of their actions “on more than one level.” The anger the Israeli offensive on Gaza provoked may also “lead to the targeting of US interests,” he added.

Hezbollah on Thursday informed the Lebanese cabinet that it was not responsible for firing the rockets, Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri said.

On the day before the rockets were launched, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had said his party was ready for “any eventuality” with Israel. “What they saw in the July War is nothing compared to what we have prepared for them in the case of a new Israeli aggression,” he said in his final speech marking the tenth and last day of Ashoura.

On behalf of the Lebanese cabinet, Mitri told AFP there was “absolutely no reason” to think Hezbollah was behind the attacks. "Hezbollah has assured us that they remain committed to stability and Resolution 1701 and that is a euphemism for saying they are not involved," Mitri said, adding it was not in Lebanon’s interests to fall into another confrontation with its southern neighbor.

-NOW Staff