Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel in ‘initial response’ to killing of top leader from allied Hamas

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the barrage was its initial response to the targeted killing, presumably by Israel, of a top leader from the allied Hamas group in Lebanon’s capital earlier this week.

The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that his group must retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas. Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah does not retaliate for Arouri’s killing in its stronghold south of Beirut, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack.

Nasrallah appeared to be making the case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. But he gave no indication of how or when the militants would act.

Hezbollah said Saturday that it launched 62 rockets toward an air surveillance base on Mount Meron and that it scored direct hits. The Israeli military about 40 rockets were fired toward the area of Meron, but made no mention of a base. It said it struck the cell that fired the rockets.

The escalating cross-border exchanges came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a Middle East trip to prevent the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 14th week, from spreading across the region. Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday for meetings with the country’s president and foreign minister. It’s Blinken’s fourth Middle East trip in three months.

International criticism of Israel’s operations in Gaza has been mounting, while the U.S. is increasingly worried about the end game. This comes in addition to Washington’s worries about a recent explosion in attacks in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.

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