Lebanese Enter Israel-Palestine Conflict, Lobs Rockets Into Upper Galilee

As rocket fire from Gaza penetrated deeper into Israel Friday, a radical Lebanese group has joined Hamas in launching rocket attacks early Friday morning. The Lebanese military said three rockets were fired toward Israel around 6 a.m. and that Israel responded by firing roughly 25 artillery shells on the area.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner confirmed the response by the Israeli military, and one of the three rockets landed in a village in the Upper Galilee. Israeli military officials say the IDF has hit 1,100 targets in the Gaza Strip since the start of an operation launched Monday to end Gazan rocket attacks “once and for all.” Roughly 210 targets were hit over just the past 24 hours.

According to the Jerusalem Post, during the past 24 hours, the IDF struck 81 underground rocket launchers, 21 command and control centers, 15 attack tunnels, and ten training centers. Also, seven Hamas regime buildings were also hit, 600 underground rocket launchers were targeted, as well as 95 command and control centers, 61 underground tunnels and 22 regime buildings.

Nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a major offensive on Tuesday, but Hamas continues to target Southern and Central Israel with heavy rocket fire. Israeli officials said the strikes are targeting rocket-launching sites and homes that double as command and control sites for Hamas militants, and that they have tried to minimize civilian casualties.

“But when Hamas embeds itself in the civilian population and uses it as a human shield,” said Lt. Col. Lerner. “That makes it very difficult for us.”

At a meeting of the UN Security Council, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour accused Israel of war crimes and terrorism, reading off the lists of names of the children who had been killed in Israeli air strikes since Operation Protective Edge began on Tuesday.

“The immediate thing that we want is for the Security Council to shoulder its responsibility and stop this aggression against our people,” Mansour said on Wednesday. He also repeatedly denounced what he called Israel’s attempts to “discredit” the unity government.

The unity government Mansour referred to was put together in early June by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who relied upon Hamas support to remain in power.

Israel’s Ambassador Ron Prosor took out his phone and played the sobering sound of an air-raid siren.

“Fifteen seconds,” he told the diplomats. “That’s how much time you have to run for your life,” Prosor said. “Our clear goal is to dismantle the infrastructure that Hamas has amassed. [Hamas] has turned this whole place [Gaza] into a launching pad of terror.”

Meanwhile, Lerner blamed Hamas for the death of bystanders by firing from heavily populated areas and using those areas as cover.

Israel’s military “uses its weapons to defend its civilians. Hamas uses its civilians to defend its weapons,” he said.

Israeli leaders are still deciding whether to launch a ground assault in Gaza to deliver n attack of overwhelming force. Israel has mobilized more than 30,000 reservists to supplement the potential ground operation.