Hezbollah in Lebanon fired a barrage of rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing a commander in one of the group’s elite units, a further escalation of this week’s cross-border fire that’s raising alarm of a wider war.

A senior member of the Iran-backed group’s elite Radwan Force was killed Wednesday along with two others in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, the Israeli army said Thursday. Hezbollah responded by firing dozens of rockets into northern Israel.

Concerns of a war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Middle East’s most powerful militia, have been rising since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran and considered terrorist organizations by the U.S.

An escalation in the Hezbollah conflict would engage the Jewish state in a second deadly front and have the potential to further devastate Lebanon, a country already struggling with a severe economic crisis and a essentially powerless government.

The Israel Defense Forces said the targeted Hezbollah commander, Ali Al Dabs, planned and carried out attacks against Israel, including one in the north early last year. His killing was part of a series of strikes by Israel on Wednesday in response to rockets suspected of being fired by Hezbollah.

An Israeli soldier was killed in that earlier barrage, which hit the town of Safed and an army base about 15 kilometers from the border with Lebanon, deeper than any previous attack. While Hezbollah didn’t claim responsibility for that strike, the attack came from an area controlled by the group. Israel’s retaliatory fire killed at least eight people including women and children, Lebanon’s state-run news agency said.

Hezbollah said Thursday it also hit four army posts along the border with Israel including what it said was surveillance equipment, according to separate statements. Israel has also struck several villages in south Lebanon.

The flare-up coincides with threats by Israel’s military to start an offensive on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken refuge from fighting elsewhere in the enclave. Despite strong criticism from U.S. President Joe Biden and others, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Hamas has fighters in Rafah and the war can only end when the group is destroyed.

Nicolas Nahhas, an adviser to Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, said his country’s authorities have little, if any, control over Hezbollah and that the attacks are needlessly provoking Israel’s Netanyahu.

“In Lebanon, we are living day by day and watching the situation closely,” Nahhas said. “A war on Lebanon is a possibility at any given time, but we as Lebanese shouldn’t give Netanyahu any excuse.”

‘We will act’

Nahhas said the Lebanese premier reached out to the U.S. and France to ease tensions. Both Washington and Paris have in recent months tried to mediate between Lebanon and Israel to reach a settlement that would resolve a land border dispute and the presence of militants near that frontier.

The spokesman for U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Andrea Tenenti, said events in recent days “are a worrying shift in the exchange of fire,” including attacks far beyond the so-called Blue Line, the boundary set by the U.N.

Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said Israel wants to reach an agreement to return residents of north Israel back to their homes but that they will act if left with no choice.

“Hezbollah went up a half click and we went up a step. But that’s one step out of 10,” Gallant said.

“But if there is no choice, we will act,” he added. “This has to be clear to our enemies, but also to our friends.”

(With assistance from Omar Tamo and Alisa Odenheimer.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.