ROCKET fire from Lebanon killed seven people in Israel yesterday as two separate attacks hit the north of the country.

Meanwhile, eight people were killed by Israeli attacks on various parts of Lebanon.

The Hezbollah group has been firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel and drawing retaliatory strikes, since the October 7 2023 attack on southern Israel by Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip.

The conflict along the border escalated into a full-blown war last month, when Israel launched a wave of heavy air strikes across Lebanon and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his deputies. Israeli ground forces then invaded Lebanon at the start of October.

The regional council of Metula, in the Northern District of Israel, reported yesterday’s attack, without detailing the number or type of projectiles used. 

The town, which is Israel’s northernmost, surrounded by Lebanon on three sides, has suffered heavy damage from rocket fire. The residents evacuated in October 2023 and only security officials and agricultural workers, many of them migrants, remain.

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an organisation that defends the rights of foreign workers, said authorities had put them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.

Earlier yesterday, the Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more areas of southern Lebanon, as air strikes in various parts of the country killed eight people, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Israel has called for evacuations from large areas of the country, including major cities in the south and east. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced since the escalation began in September.

Thousands have fled from Baalbek, the main city in the eastern valley of Beqaa, and surrounding areas following Israeli evacuation warnings and aerial bombardment on Wednesday.

Jean Fakhry, a local official in the Deir al-Ahmar region, some 10 miles to the south-east, said the main highway had “turned into a parking lot.” He said around 12,000 displaced people were staying in the area, mostly in private homes.

At one of the shelters, families with luggage were still arriving yesterday.

“Our homes were destroyed,” said Zahraa Younis, from a village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing, no clothes or anything else, and took shelter here.”

More than 2,800 people have been killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Lebanon since the conflict began last year, according to the Health Ministry.

In Israel, Hezbollah rockets, missiles and drones have killed at least 68 people, about half of them soldiers. More than 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from towns and cities along the border for more than a year.