Hezbollah shells Israeli troops in northern Israel

By Anadolu staff

BEIRUT (AA) - The Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on an Israeli troop deployment in northern Israel on Monday.

In a brief statement, the group said it fired a barrage of rockets at Israeli soldiers in the Kiryat Shmona settlement in northern Israel.

The attack came a day after the group carried out 17 rocket attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel on Sunday.

It also came after the assassination of Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif in an Israeli airstrike on the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood in the head of the capital Beirut.

Israel launched an air campaign in Lebanon against what it claims are targets of the Hezbollah group in late September, in an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare over Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

More than 3,400 people have been killed, over 14,600 injured and more than 1 million displaced by Israeli attacks since last October, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East region is on the brink of a regional war, Israel expanded the conflict by launching a ground assault into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 this year.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara