Rockets, this time from Lebanon, struck northern Israel Sunday. The rockets caused no injuries but they did spark an Israeli shelling reprisal in a rare flare-up between the two states. Residents of the northern Israel town of Kiryat Shmona awoke to a pair of large explosions.
Israeli police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld said no injuries or damage were caused from the rocket fire. Shortly after the initial attack, the Israeli military said it responded with artillery fired toward the source of the launch. Lebanon’s state news agency said the border area was shelled after the rockets hit Israel. The agency said over 20 shells hit the mountainous region around the southern Lebanese border area of Rachaya.
The Israel-Lebanon border has remained mostly quiet since a month-long war in the summer of 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. There have been sporadic outbursts of violence, the most recent of which was earlier this month when a Lebanese army sniper killed an Israeli soldier. Lebanon is unusually jittery after a Friday car bombing in an upscale district of Beirut. On Sunday, Lebanese soldiers fanned out throughout the country, manning checkpoints and closing off sensitive roads.
The Lebanese government however, is notoriously unable to control its own security and Hezbollah has its own large, well-trained militia that dominates the southern border. There are also small bands of Palestinian militants who claim responsibility for some isolated rocket attacks. Incidences of rocket fire though have been infrequent since the two countries agreed to a cease-fire that ended the 2006 war during which 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis were killed.
Israel and Lebanon have fought several wars before and in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the stated intention of driving Palestinian guerrillas out of the south. The Israeli military battled halfway through the country into Beirut and occupied south Lebanon until 2000.
Given the years of tension between the two countries, even the smallest incident raises the risk of sparking a wider, larger conflict.