Two separate Hezbollah rocket attacks have killed seven people in northern Israel, authorities say – the deadliest day of such attacks in months.
An Israeli farmer and four foreign farm workers were killed when rockets landed near Metula, a town on the border with Lebanon, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said.
Later, an Israeli woman and her adult son were murdered in an olive grove near Kibbutz Afek, on the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it had fired a barrage of rockets at the Krayot area north of Haifa and at Israeli forces south of the Lebanese town of Khiam, which lies across the border from Metula.
The Israeli army identified two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon and fell in an open area near Metula on Thursday morning.
The Israeli farmer who was killed was named by local media as Omer Weinstein, a 46-year-old father of four from nearby kibbutz Dafna.
Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa said on Friday that four Thai nationals were killed by rocket fire.
A fifth Thai worker was injured, he added.
Videos posted online showed them being transferred by helicopter to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
Haaretz said that Mr. Weinstein and the foreign workers were in an agricultural field near the border fence at the time of the attack.
It quoted a member of the local emergency response team as saying that the Israeli army had allowed them to enter the area despite Metula being in a closed military zone.
The army established the zone in late September, just before it launched a ground invasion of Lebanon aimed at destroying Hezbollah’s weapons and infrastructure.
Thursday’s second rocket attack reportedly hit an agricultural area near Kibbutz Afek, about 40 miles southwest of Metula and 17 miles from the Lebanese border.
The military said a total of 55 projectiles were fired in the early afternoon at the Western Galilee region, where the kibbutz is located, as well as at Central Galilee and Upper Galilee. Some projectiles were intercepted and others fell in open areas, it added.
According to Haaretz, 60-year-old Mina Hasson and her 30-year-old son, Karmi, were killed by a rocket that hit an olive grove where they were picking olives.
According to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, a 70-year-old man was also slightly injured by shrapnel and was taken to Rambam Hospital.
“We were called to the olive grove and saw a man in his 30s lying unconscious on the ground,” MDA paramedics Mazor and Yishai Levy told the Jerusalem Post.
“We initiated resuscitation efforts while we conducted further searches, during which we found another victim, also in critical condition with multi-system injuries. We provided her with medical treatment and performed CPR, but unfortunately we had to declare both of them dead,” they said.
Meanwhile, the head of the Irish army said a UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon, housing Irish troops, was hit by a rocket fired at Israel on Wednesday evening.
The missile landed in an unoccupied area of Camp Shamrock, 4.5 miles (7 km) from the Israeli border, causing minimal damage on the ground and no casualties, Lt. Gen. Sean Clancy said.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said: “Thankfully everyone is safe, but it is completely unacceptable that this has happened. Peacekeepers are protected under international law and it is up to all parties to guarantee that protection.”
The deadly rocket attacks in northern Israel came as two US special envoys met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss a possible ceasefire to end the war with Hezbollah.
Netanyahu told Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk that the most important issue was what he called Israel’s ability to “thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon in a way that will return our residents safely to their homes,” his office said in a statement .
Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah – which the country labels a terrorist organization – after nearly a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.
It said it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israel’s northern border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of the Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to Lebanese authorities, more than 2,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,200 in the past five weeks, and 1.2 million others have been displaced.
Israeli authorities say more than 60 people have been killed by Hezbollah rocket, drone and rocket attacks in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military said troops continued operations in southern Lebanon and that aircraft had hit dozens of Hezbollah targets across the country.
The Lebanese Health Ministry, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes had killed six paramedics in three southern cities.
Four from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Organization, which provides emergency services, were killed when Israeli forces attacked a staging area at the Derdghaya junction, the report said.
A fifth IHS paramedic was killed in an airstrike on a vehicle in Deir al-Zahrani, while an attack in Zefta killed a paramedic from the Islamic Risala Scout Association, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-linked Amal movement , the ministry said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. But dozens of paramedics and other aid workers have been killed and injured since the country stepped up its air campaign against Hezbollah five weeks ago.
The military has previously accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters. The IHS has denied links to military operations.
There were also new Israeli attacks near Baalbek, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a day after the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of the entire city and two neighboring towns.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that a woman was killed in an attack in the Kayyal region.
Another six people were killed when a house was bombed in Maqna, which is located five kilometers northeast of Baalbek but was not part of the evacuation zone.
