4 Rockets Fired from Tyre Area at Israel, Army Finds Launch Pads

Unknown militants fired four rockets from the southern region of Tyre towards northern Israel on Thursday.

“Four rockets were fired from an area between Hawsh and the al-Rashidiyeh (Palestinian refugee) camp towards the Occupied Territories (northern Israel),” Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

It said the Lebanese army found wooden launch pads from which the rockets were fired between Hawsh and al-Rashidiyeh, denying reports of retaliatory Israeli shelling against southern Lebanon.

"Unknown gunmen fired four rockets from two positions, south and east of Tyre, at Israel," a Lebanese security source told Agence France Presse as residents in the area said they heard four blasts.

Israel's Channel 2 said a rocket landed in the Israeli town of Nahariya as emergency sirens went off in northern Israel.

The Israeli army said its Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted one of "three or four rockets fired from south of Tyre."

The interception took place between Nahariya and the coastal town of Acre, further south.

None of the rockets, which were "probably a launching done by a global jihadi organization," hit Israeli territory, Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told journalists, saying they might have fallen "in the sea or elsewhere."

Lerner added that airspace in the north of Israel had been closed following what he described as an "unprovoked attack on Israeli citizens."

The Israeli army did not retaliate, Lerner said, and another spokesman said the army considered the attack an "isolated incident."

A Lebanese army statement said “unknown individuals fired four Katyusha rockets from an area south of the city of Tyre towards the occupied Palestinian territories.”

In the wake of the incident, army troops “conducted a search operation in the area, where they found four wooden rocket launch pads in the outskirts of the town of Hawsh,” it added.

“The relevant army units in coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have launched a probe into the incident to unveil the circumstances and identify and arrest the perpetrators,” it said.

Israeli police urged residents of the north to remain close to bomb shelters.

The Iron Dome batteries, which are deployed throughout Israel, can shoot down rockets with a range of up to 70 kilometers.

A spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said the U.N. force was probing the attack and following up the situation on the two sides of the border.

Later on Thursday, the Israeli news website walla.co.il said the attack was claimed by the al-Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades.

In November 2011, the group fired a volley of rockets from southern Lebanon at Israel, provoking a reaction from the Israeli army.

The same group had claimed responsibility for a rocket attack in 2009.