KIRYAT SHMONA (Israel), June 17: Suspected Palestinian militants in Lebanon hit a northern Israeli town with two Katyusha rockets on Sunday, Lebanese and Israeli officials said. No one was hurt.
Hezbollah guerrillas, who fired thousands of Katyushas into Israel last year, denied responsibility.
Israeli forces did not retaliate as the government made clear it wanted no escalation into another border war.
“Israel will not be drawn in,” an Israeli official said.
A Lebanese security source and the Israeli official blamed Palestinians, though any motivation was unclear for the
first cross-border rocket attack since the month-long war a year ago.
The attack came a few hours after a new, Western-backed emergency Palestinian government was sworn in in the West Bank after a week of bloody Palestinian faction fighting that saw the Islamist group Hamas seize control in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas and Hezbollah share some characteristics, including support from Iran and Syria.
The 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have also been affected in recent weeks by fighting between Lebanese troops and Al Qaeda-inspired Palestinian Islamists in a camp in the north.
Two Katyushas landed in the town of Kiryat Shmona, Israeli police said. One damaged a parked car. There were no casualties.
Lebanese security sources said they had found a wooden launch platform for four Katyushas near the village of Taibeh.
Three had been fired using a timer. The third, Soviet-made rocket landed inside Lebanon. A fourth had not been launched. Security forces were hunting suspects who were in two cars.
HEZBOLLAH DENY
“We had nothing to do with this,” a Hezbollah spokesman in Beirut said.
“It seems that it was Palestinians, not Hezbollah,” said the Israeli official, who was travelling with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as he arrived in New York on a working visit.
“The prime minister was updated about the Katyusha rockets immediately after the event and has consulted with the defence minister and foreign minister,” the official said.
Israel viewed the attack with ‘deep concern’ and thought the Palestinians were trying to trigger an Israeli military response. “Israel will not be drawn in,” the official said.
UN peacekeepers, whose force was expanded after the war last year to help keep Hezbollah and Israeli forces apart, said they were looking into what happened.
“We’re ascertaining the facts on the ground,” spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said.
“We were outside the factory when suddenly there was a frightening boom,” one man told Israel’s Channel 2 television.
“We saw a black cloud in the sky and we came over to inspect the damage and we saw this,” he said, pointing to a hole in the road next to the damaged car, which had apparently been empty.—Reuters
