Thursday, January 8, 2009

'Unknown group' in Lebanon launches rockets at Israel



JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Four rockets struck northern Israel from Lebanon on Thursday, wounding two people, Israeli police and emergency medical services said.
The Lebanese Army issued a statement, saying the rockets were launched by "an unknown group" and that the Israeli retaliatory fire inflicted no casualties.
The rockets hit near the city of Nahariya, located about six miles from the Lebanese border, police said. The Israeli military said it returned fire toward the source of the rockets after the attack.
Schools and kindergartens were closed in Nahariya and the nearby town of Shlomi, the Israel Defense Forces reported.
The Israeli military warned civilians in the western Galilee region to stay close to shelters in the aftermath of Thursday's attack. Watch CNN's Christiane Amanpour discuss rocket attack »
The report comes as Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, aimed at halting rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory to the south, entered a 13th day.
Israel fought a similar campaign against the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah in 2006, during which Hezbollah rained rockets on cities in Israeli's north for a month before a cease-fire was reached.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday's attack.
The Lebanese Army's statement also said its troops and the U.N. peacekeeping mission that patrols the border "have taken all necessary measures to protect the population and control the situation."
Hezbollah has kept a tight rein on its forces in southern Lebanon since the cease-fire, however, and a number of Palestinian factions operate in southern Lebanon as well.

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