Hezbollah retaliatory rockets kill civilian in Kiryat Shmona

Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel Wednesday killing a civilian, after Israel carried out a deadly strike in south Lebanon.

Israeli rescue teams searching a building that had been hit in the border town of Kiryat Shmona "found a 25 year old who was unconscious, with no pulse and not breathing", and pronounced him dead at the scene, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

The man was killed when a direct hit sparked a fire in an industrial park in Kiryat Shmona. Footage from the scene showed thick black smoke pouring out of a building.

Another person was lightly injured. Around 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.

Hezbollah said it targeted Kiryat Shmona in response to the killing of 7 people in an overnight strike on an emergency center in south Lebanon.

It said it fired "dozens of rockets" Wednesday morning on the northern Israeli settlement of Kiryat Shmona and a military base there in retaliation for what it called "the massacre" committed by Israel in Habariyeh.

The Israeli airstrike killed seven paramedics in the emergency center linked to Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim al-Jamaa al-Islamiya in the border town of Habariyeh.

The seven dead were pulled out from the rubble before sunrise Wednesday. It was one of the deadliest single attacks since violence erupted along the border. The paramedics association said the strike was "a flagrant violation of humanitarian work," while the Israeli military claimed that it struck "a military compound" and killed militants, including a Jamaa Islamiya member involved in attacks against Israel. It said the group was planning attacks against Israel at the time of the strike.

Habariyeh mayor Ayman shoukeir stressed that the center was not "a military compound" and that its members, including the seven killed, were rescuers and were not armed or involved in the border clashes.

Later on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers in the Shtula settlement, a post in the occupied Kfarshouba Hills, an infantry force in Ramim, and surveillance equipment in Misgav Am.

Since the start of the Gaza war, Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces along Lebanon's southern border. At least 331 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but including at least 57 civilians.

At least 10 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to the Israeli military.