SIAPAKAH YANG MELANCARKAN ROKET KE ARAH ISRAEL DARI LOKASI LUBNAN?

Sekurang-kurangnya 3 roket telah dilepaskan dari arah Lubnan menepati sasaran di bahagian utara Israel dan menyebabkan dua orang tercedera. Sementara itu Israel telah membalas balik bedilan ke arah tersebut. Pihak tentera Israel tidak pasti siapkah yang melakukannya? Hezbollah, HAMAS, Fatah, Ikhwanul Muslimin, Kumpulan Palestin atau Israel sendiri (MOSAD)


Israel Hit by Rockets From Lebanon, Conflict Widens
FOXnews /Thursday, January 08, 2009

A Hezbollah minister in Lebanon's Cabinet is denying any involvement by the militant group in the firing of rockets from Lebanon into Israel.

At least three rockets were fired, and Israel responded with a few artillery shells into Lebanon, which borders the country to the north. The exchange threatened to open a second front as Israel continues its offensive against the militant group Hamas on its southern border, in the Gaza Strip.

Two people were lightly injured, and the rockets that exploded in Israel's north raised the specter of renewed hostilities with Hezbollah, just 2 1/2 years after Israel battled the guerrilla group to a 34-day stalemate. Hezbollah started the 2006 war as Israel was battling Palestinian militants in Gaza.


Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel amid Gaza offensive

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan / Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - At least three rockets fired from Lebanon exploded in northern Israel on Thursday, wounding two people, police and medics said, in an attack seen as linked to Israel's offensive against Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.

Israel hit back with artillery shells in what a military spokesman called "a pinpoint response at the source of fire."

It was not immediately clear whether Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas -- against whom Israel fought a 2006 war -- or Palestinians fired the rockets, which presented a new challenge to Israeli leaders who have waged attacks on Gaza for 13 days.

Lebanese security sources said it seemed unlikely Hezbollah fired the salvoes. Hamas sources in Lebanon denied involvement.

Israeli forces have been on high alert in the north fearing that Hezbollah could fire rockets into northern Israel as it did in the 2006 conflict and lend support to Hamas and the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants.

Israeli warplanes bombed targets across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and tanks advanced in the Hamas-ruled territory as U.S. backing for a truce proposal raised expectations of an end to the onslaught that has killed more than 600 Palestinians.

Shi'ite Hezbollah has not opened fire since Israel started bombarding the Gaza enclave nearly two weeks ago to the south of Israel with the declared aim of halting Hamas rocket attacks.

Palestinian groups in Lebanon have also been known to fire rockets and Israeli military affairs commentators said it was more likely they were responsible for the rockets that hit the Israeli resort town of Nahariya and three other locations.

One rocket punched a hole in the roof of a building in Nahariya that Israeli media said was a home for the elderly and was being evacuated.

"I have decided on two steps -- to send schoolchildren home and that people should remain in shelters," Nahariya Mayor Jackie Sabag said on Israel's Channel Two television.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said two people in northern Israel were slightly wounded and several were treated for shock after what police said were at least three rocket strikes.

HEAVY BOMBARDMENT

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian man who tried to set fire to a gas station at a Jewish settlement, police said.

Residents in Gaza described the overnight bombardment to the east of the city as among the heaviest in the offensive.

An Israeli air strike killed three gunmen of the Islamic Jihad group in northern Gaza, medics said. Tanks advanced closer to the southern town of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Residents in Gaza described an overnight bombardment to the east of the city as among the heaviest in the offensive. In the south of the territory tanks advanced closer to the town of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Although Israel pressed on with the offensive, it said it accepted the "principles" of a European-Egyptian ceasefire proposal. The United States urged Israel to study the plan.

Israel's assault resumed after a brief pause Wednesday to help Gaza's inhabitants stock up on much-needed supplies.

Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday, medics said, including three children in an air strike on a car. The total Palestinian deathtoll was at least 661, according to medical officials.

U.N. officials have said a quarter of the Palestinian dead were civilians, while other accounts put that proportion higher.

Ten Israelis have died in the past 13 days, seven of them soldiers, including four killed by "friendly" fire.

With both George W. Bush's outgoing administration and President-elect Barack Obama speaking out on the need for peace, officials said Israel would send an envoy to Cairo to discuss how the Egyptian plan might be implemented.

That may take several days. In the meantime, Israeli military commanders appear determined to keep up the pressure on the ground, even if a decision on whether to launch a new phase by targeting militants in Gaza's urban centres was put off.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed Israel's concerns that a deal must achieve its goal of stopping the Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza from hitting Israel with rockets.

"It has to be a ceasefire that will not allow a return to the status quo," she said.

Hamas said it was looking at the Egyptian plan, brokered by France, which addresses Israel's demand that the militant group be prevented from rearming through smuggling tunnels from Egypt. The proposal also addresses Hamas's call for an end to Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday's killing by Israeli shells of 42 people, including women and children sheltering in a U.N.-run school in Jabalya refugee camp, intensified international pressure on Israel to call a halt. U.N. officials denied an Israeli army account that militants had been firing from the school.

Israel has said it will press on until Hamas can no longer hit its southern towns with rockets. Israeli leaders face a parliamentary election in a month and will want to show the public that they have met that objective.

However, U.S. involvement of the kind that helped end the Lebanon war and which was perceived as absent in the first week of the Gaza fighting may indicate that, whatever the state of combat on the ground, a ceasefire could be on the cards.

Some Israeli analysts say Israel faces a deadline to wrap up its campaign by the time Obama is sworn in, or risk a strain in ties with Washington at the outset of the new administration.

European governments have proposed backing the Egyptian ceasefire proposal with an EU force along the Gaza-Egypt border that would prevent Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, from rearming through its many tunnels

Hamas called off a six-month ceasefire late last month, accusing Israel of breaking an agreement to ease supplies.