Jamaa Islamiya resumes rocket attacks on Israel

Lebanon’s Jamaa Islamiya said Monday that its military wing fired a volley of rockets at Israel’s Beit Hillel military post in the Kiryat Shmona settlement, resuming military action from Lebanon against Israel after several months of apparent suspension.

The group said its attack came after Israel escalated “its aggression against our people and villages in the South and in support of our people in Gaza and Palestine as part of the national and humanitarian duties.”

Several groups allied to Hamas have exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces along Lebanon's southern border since war erupted in the Gaza Strip following Hamas's October 7 attacks on southern Israel.

The groups say they are acting in solidarity with Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Jamaa Islamiya has carried out "joint operations with Hamas" in Lebanon, according to an official from the small Sunni Muslim movement.

"All forces that operate in south Lebanon coordinate their actions," Ali Abu Yassin, head of Jamaa Islamiya's political bureau, told AFP in March.

The group announced the death of seven of its medics in an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon that month and Israel has carried out drone assassinations of several of its commanders.

Mohanad Hage Ali, from the Carnegie Middle East Center, said Jamaa Islamiya was "operating as an extension of Hamas in Lebanon," describing the two movements' relationship as "organic."

Hage Ali says Jamaa Islamiya has "around 500 armed men" but has played only a "marginal political role" in Lebanon with just one lawmaker in the national parliament.

Jamaa Islamiya and Hamas both come from the same ideological school as the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group with origins in Egypt.

Jamaa Islamiya established its armed wing, the Fajr Forces, in 1982 to fight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Relations with Hezbollah have seen ups and downs but improved recently, analyst Hage Ali said, particularly since Jamaa Islamiya elected a new leadership closer to Hamas in 2022.

But Hage Ali noted Jamaa Islamiya "is not subservient" to Hezbollah.

The two groups differ in particular over the Syrian conflict, with Hezbollah supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since his 2011 repression of anti-government protests sparked war, unlike Hamas and Jamaa Islamiya.

Jamaa Islamiya political official Abu Yassin acknowledged his group had "differences of opinion with Hezbollah due to its participation in the Syrian war on the side of the regime."

The Jamaa Islamiya official requesting anonymity said that though the groups differ over Syria, "today, we are in the same trench as Hezbollah on the Palestinian issue."