Rocket attack in Israel
© Reuters/Ronen Zvulun Onlookers walk past damage caused by a rocket fired from Lebanon into Israel, in Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv, near the northern city of Nahariya August 22, 2013.
A rare rocket barrage from Lebanon on Thursday deepened Israeli concern that al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants are opening a new front for confrontation with Israel.

The Israeli military said several rockets were fired from southern Lebanon, but that one was intercepted by an anti-missile shield and two or three others fell outside Israeli territory. However, Israeli security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least five rockets hit Israel.

Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said there were no casualties.


Comment: This is the usual pattern of Israeli false flag operations with rockets landing in open fields and with no one injured. It serves as a good distraction from Israel's likely role in the Syrian gas attack as well as reminding its citizens why their leaders have to be tough and ruthless.


Southern Lebanon is a stronghold of the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group, which fought a war against Israel in 2006. But Israel blamed the attack on a "global jihadi organization", its term for al Qaeda and Islamist militant offshoots.

In Syria, Sunni Muslim jihadi fighters are battling alongside rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by militants from Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah.

A strike on Israel by jihadists would be a show of force just a day after opposition activists in Syria accused Assad's loyalists of using chemical weapons to kill hundreds of people in a rebel-held Damascus suburb. The Syrian army denied the allegations.

Israel believes jihadi groups in Egypt's lawless Sinai along Israel's southern border have been behind sporadic rocket attacks on its Red Sea resort of Eilat, where an "Iron Dome" battery shot down a rocket on August 13. On Monday, suspected Islamist militants killed 25 Egyptian policemen in Sinai.

Israeli leaders have said they fear al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria could eventually turn their sights on Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, or that Hezbollah might do so to deflect criticism from much of the Sunni Arab world for its potent support for Assad.

"(Thursday's rocket strike) is directly connected to all of the events taking place in the Middle East," said Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli military's chief spokesman.

"Global jihad is looking for areas in which there is anarchy and chaos. We see them in Sinai, we find them in the Golan Heights, we find them in Lebanon, too," he said. "They exploit opportunities ... and sometimes they try to attack Israeli citizens."


Comment: Pathological deviants never miss an opportunity to project on to others what they themselves are guilty of.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, commenting on Thursday's strike, said in a statement that "anyone who tries to attack us should know that we will hurt them".

Israel's military, however, signaled it would not retaliate for now for the launchings that triggered warning sirens and sent residents in the north scrambling for shelter.

"The IDF (military) is regarding this as a one-time incident. There is no change in regulations or orders," Mordechai told Channel 2 television, looking to play down the attack, the first on northern Israel since May.

Israeli television showed photos of an "Iron Dome" interceptor blowing up an incoming rocket. The military said it was destroyed between the Israeli coastal towns of Acre and Nahariya.