Several wounded in northern Israel rocket attack

A rocket strike wounded several people in the central Israeli city of Tira, Israel’s emergency medical service said early Saturday.

Seven people were taken to hospital with moderate or mild wounds, including “a male around 20 with shrapnel injuries”, the Magden David Adom (MDA) service said in a statement on social media platform X.

The MDA also shared a picture and video that showed a badly damaged building cordoned off while emergency responders swarmed the street.

A video published by the Israeli military radio station Galatz on X showed a large explosion.

The Israeli army said on Telegram that it had identified three projectiles fired from Lebanon towards the centre of Israel and intercepted several of them.

Tira, a predominantly Arab town, is located around 25 kilometres (15 miles) northeast of Tel Aviv, near the border with the occupied West Bank.

The war that has been raging in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has spread to Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out massive air strikes against Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian group Hamas.

According to Israeli official figures, at least 63 people have been killed on the Israeli side since cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah erupted in October last year following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

On Thursday, rocket fire from Lebanon killed seven people in Metula, northern Israel, including four Thai farmers.

Hamas’s October attack on Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s response has led to the deaths of 43,163 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry considered reliable by the United Nations.