Hezbollah rocket attack in Golan Heights leaves two dead

Two people were killed in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Tuesday by rocket barrages launched by Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, Israeli sources said.

"Approximately 40 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into the area of the central Golan Heights," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. "Several projectiles were identified falling in the area," it added.

The Golan Regional Council warned civilians in the northern Golan Heights to stay near shelters and avoid gatherings until further notice.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, stating it was retaliation for the killing of a former personal bodyguard of Hezbollah Leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. The bodyguard was killed earlier in the day in an Israeli airstrike near the Syria-Lebanon border.

"In response to the attack and assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy on the Damascus-Beirut road, we bombed in batches the headquarters of the 210th Golan Division at the Nafah base with dozens of Katyusha rockets," it said.

Lebanese military sources told Xinhua that the Lebanese army monitored the launching of about 100 surface-to-surface missiles from the Lebanese side to Israel, and Israeli Iron Dome missiles intercepted some of them.

The sources added that Israeli drones and warplanes conducted five airstrikes on three towns and villages in the eastern part of southern Lebanon. Additionally, it fired artillery shellings at 12 towns and villages, injuring four Lebanese in the southeastern village of Rab El Thalathine, said the sources.