(Bloomberg) -- Hezbollah and Israeli forces again exchanged fire on Tuesday as tensions rise with the Lebanese militant group and its sponsor Iran threatening to attack the Jewish state more forcefully.
Hezbollah fired several drones at Israel’s north-western Galilee region on Tuesday and several civilians near the coastal town of Nahariya were injured. The Israel Defense Forces said early indications suggest they were hurt by an Israeli interceptor missile as it hit the ground, rather than the Hezbollah projectiles.
If confirmed, that would be a rare instance of Israel’s air-defense missiles injuring its own population in that manner.
Hezbollah said it launched the drones at military facilities in response to Israel targeting the group in the south of Lebanon this week. At least four of its fighters were killed, it said.
Tensions between the Shiite organization and Israel have soared in the past two weeks. Israel blamed Hezbollah for a rocket attack that killed 12 children and teenagers at a football field in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights. It retaliated last week by targeting and killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut.
Hezbollah — designated a terrorist organization by the US — said the death of the commander, Fuad Shukr, crossed a red line and it threatened to respond fiercely.
The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, reiterated that message in a speech on Tuesday and said it was deliberately keeping Israel waiting for a retaliation.
Hours after Shukr was killed, a senior Hamas figure was assassinated in Tehran, with the Palestinian group and Iran saying Israel was behind the move. Iran’s vowed to attack Israel and it may act in coordination with Hezbollah, the most important of its proxy militias in the Middle East.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied killing the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
Hezbollah started firing on Israel soon after the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October. Hezbollah says it’s acting in solidarity with Palestinians and Hamas and will stop once there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Israel and Hezbollah have mostly targeted military sites and facilities close to their border area. Still, many civilians have been killed in both countries and there are increasing fears that their skirmishes will escalate into a full-blown war.
(Updates with comments from Hezbollah leader in a speech.)
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