Hezbollah and Israel trade rocket fire, heightening tensions

That's all from The New Arab today. Make sure to keep up to date with the latest developments on our main site: https://thenewarab.co.uk/

The Lebanese army has deployed units, alongside UNIFIL, in southern Lebanon “to restore calm to the area,” the army command said.

The Lebanese army has arrested four people in Shwayaa who fired rockets towards Israel, seizing the launcher used in the process.

Caretaker Prime Minister of Lebanon Hassan Diab stressed the “necessity of restoring calm, and stopping the repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, which culminated in the air raids carried out yesterday on Lebanese territory.” He added that these airstrikes “posed a direct and strong threat to [UNSC] Resolution 1701,” which established a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in the wake of the 2006 war.

A source within Hezbollah told Al Araby al-Jadeed that the group had “no intention of escalation” and that today’s rocket fire was a response to Israel’s bombing which, “like any other aggression, cannot be allowed.”

According to updates from The New Arab's sister site Al Araby Al-Jadeed, the artillery shelling of Israel in the Al-Arqoub area, the Kafr Shuba heights and the Sadana hills has no stopped.

Reconnaissance plans are now flying over these areas to surveil. 

The mayor of Kafr Shuba, a town in southern Lebanon, told Al Araby al-Jadeed, that “Israeli bombing is happening sporadically, around the southern borders of Lebanon.”

The mayor confirmed to AlAraby al-Jadeed that some residents have been displaced from their homes as a result of the bombing. No injuries have been recorded so far, but some fires have broken out in the forested areas of southern Lebanon where Israeli munitions have struck.

Hezbollah have just released a statement stating that rockets were launched away from residential areas. However, The New Arab can report that when passing through Shwayya, Hezbollah members were caught by local residents of Shwayya (a predominantly Druze community) who confiscated their weapons, and handed them over to the Lebanese Army.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Lebanese Democratic Party, a Druze political party aligned with Hezbollah, told local media outlet al Jadeed that there was “confusion” in Shwayya as citizens did not realize that the missiles belonged to Hezbollah. The spokesperson added that Hezbollah had the right to launch missiles from wherever it wanted.

UNFIL, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Southern Lebanon, called for an “immediate ceasefire” for all involved parties to prevent the situation from “spiraling out of control.”

Israel responded to Hezbollah rocket fire with artillery, shelling rocket fire launch sites in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli army.

Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for a flurry of rocket fire launched at the Shebaa Farms, an area occupied since Israel since the 1980s. The rocket fire came as a response to Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon late Wednesday night.