Is­rael struck Lebanon on Sat­ur­day in re­tal­i­a­tion for rock­ets tar­get­ing Is­rael, killing two, in­clud­ing a child, in the heav­i­est ex­change of fire since the cease­fire with the Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah.

Ear­li­er, rock­ets were fired from Lebanon in­to Is­rael, for the sec­ond time since De­cem­ber, spark­ing con­cern about whether the frag­ile cease­fire would hold. In a state­ment Sat­ur­day, Hezbol­lah de­nied be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the at­tack, say­ing that it was com­mit­ted to the truce and ac­cused Is­rael of blam­ing it for the strikes as a pre­text for more at­tacks.

Is­rael had said that it would re­spond “se­vere­ly” to the ear­ly Sat­ur­day at­tack from Lebanon when rock­ets were fired in­to north­ern Is­rael. Is­rael’s army said the in­ter­cept­ed rock­ets tar­get­ed the Is­raeli town of Metu­la.

Lebanon’s health min­istry said Sat­ur­day that the strike in the south­ern vil­lage of Touline al­so wound­ed eight oth­ers.

Hezbol­lah be­gan launch­ing rock­ets, drones and mis­siles in­to Is­rael the day af­ter Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack out of Gaza ig­nit­ed the war there. The Is­rael-Hezbol­lah con­flict boiled over in­to an all-out war in Sep­tem­ber as Is­rael car­ried out mas­sive waves of airstrikes and killed most of the mil­i­tant group’s se­nior lead­ers. The fight­ing killed more than 4,000 peo­ple in Lebanon and dis­placed about 60,000 Is­raelis.

Re­lat­ed Sto­ries

Un­der the cease­fire reached in No­vem­ber, Is­raeli forces were sup­posed to with­draw from all Lebanese ter­ri­to­ry by late Jan­u­ary. The dead­line was then ex­tend­ed to Feb. 18 by agree­ment be­tween Lebanon and Is­rael.

But since then, Is­rael has re­mained in five lo­ca­tions in Lebanon, across from com­mu­ni­ties in north­ern Is­rael, and has car­ried out dozens of airstrikes on south­ern and east­ern Lebanon, say­ing it at­tacked Hezbol­lah, while con­tin­u­ing tar­get­ed drone at­tacks that have so far killed sev­er­al mem­bers of the mil­i­tant group.

Lebanon has ap­pealed to the U.N. to pres­sure Is­rael to ful­ly with­draw from the coun­try.

Is­rael’s Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice said Sat­ur­day it in­struct­ed the army to act force­ful­ly against dozens of tar­gets in Lebanon, adding: “Is­rael will not al­low any harm to its cit­i­zens and sov­er­eign­ty.” Is­rael’s army said Sat­ur­day it was car­ry­ing out strikes on Hezbol­lah tar­gets in south Lebanon and that it struck dozens of the group’s rock­et launch­ers and a com­mand cen­ter where Hezbol­lah was op­er­at­ing.

A Hezbol­lah of­fi­cial told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press Sat­ur­day that it was not re­spon­si­ble for the at­tack, call­ing it “prim­i­tive,” speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty as they are not au­tho­rized to speak to the me­dia.

In a state­ment, Lebanon’s Prime Min­is­ter Nawaf Salam asked the Lebanese mil­i­tary to take all nec­es­sary mea­sures in the south but said the coun­try did not want to re­turn to war.

The Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­im Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said it was alarmed at the pos­si­ble es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence and urged all par­ties to avoid jeop­ar­diz­ing the progress made, say­ing fur­ther es­ca­la­tion could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for the re­gion.

Is­raeli airstrikes pound Gaza

The strikes come a day af­ter Is­rael said it would car­ry out op­er­a­tions in Gaza “with in­creas­ing in­ten­si­ty” un­til Hamas frees the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are be­lieved alive. Late Fri­day night, Is­raeli strikes killed at least nine peo­ple, in­clud­ing three chil­dren, in a house in Gaza City, ac­cord­ing to Al-Ahly Hos­pi­tal, which re­ceived the bod­ies.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said Fri­day its forces were plan­ning fresh as­saults in­to three neigh­bour­hoods west of Gaza City and is­sued warn­ings on so­cial me­dia for Pales­tini­ans to evac­u­ate the ar­eas.

Al­so on Fri­day, Is­rael blew up the on­ly spe­cial­ized can­cer hos­pi­tal in the war-torn ter­ri­to­ry. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said it struck the Turk­ish-Pales­tin­ian Friend­ship Hos­pi­tal, ac­cus­ing Hamas mil­i­tants of op­er­at­ing on-site. Turkey, which helped build and fund the hos­pi­tal, said Is­raeli troops at one point used it as a base.

Around 600 Pales­tini­ans have been killed since Is­rael re­launched the war ear­li­er this week. Is­rael had al­ready cut off the sup­ply of food, fu­el, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to Gaza’s rough­ly 2 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans, aim­ing to pres­sure Hamas over cease­fire ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has con­demned the re­sumed at­tacks. In a state­ment Fri­day, the for­eign min­is­ters of the Unit­ed King­dom, France and Ger­many called Is­rael’s strikes in Gaza a dra­mat­ic step back­ward. “We are ap­palled by the civil­ian ca­su­al­ties and ur­gent­ly call for an im­me­di­ate re­turn to a cease­fire,” they said in a joint state­ment.

The at­tack by Hamas-led mil­i­tants in 2023 killed some 1,200 peo­ple and took 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been freed in cease­fire agree­ments or oth­er deals. Is­raeli forces have res­cued eight liv­ing hostages and re­cov­ered the bod­ies of dozens more.

Is­rael’s re­tal­ia­to­ry of­fen­sive has killed more than 49,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to the Gaza Health Min­istry. It does not say how many were mil­i­tants but says more than half of those killed were women and chil­dren. Is­rael says it has killed around 20,000 mil­i­tants, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) —