Seven killed in Israel in deadliest Hezbollah rocket strikes in months
SMA NEWS – BEIRUT
Two separate Hezbollah rocket attacks have killed seven people in northern Israel, authorities say — the deadliest day of such strikes in months.
An Israeli farmer and four foreign agricultural 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 killed in an olive grove near Kibbutz Afek, on the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it had fired barrages of rockets toward the Krayot area north of Haifa and at Israeli forces south of the Lebanese town of Khiam, which is across the border from Metula.
The Israeli military identified two projectiles crossing from Lebanon and falling 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.
According to Haaretz, four foreign workers who were killed were all Thai nationals.
A fifth foreign worker was seriously injured by shrapnel. Videos posted online showed them being transferred by helicopter to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
Haaretz said Weinstein and the foreign workers were in an agricultural field near the border fence at the time of the attack.
It cited a member of the local emergency response team as saying the Israeli military had permitted them to enter the area despite Metula being inside a closed military zone.
The military established the zone at the end of September, just before it launched a ground invasion of Lebanon with the aim of destroying Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure.
Thursday’s second rocket attack reportedly hit an agricultural area near Kibbutz Afek, which is about 65km (40 miles) south-west of Metula and 28km from the Lebanese border.
The military said a total of 55 projectiles were fired towards the Western Galilee region, where the kibbutz is located, as well as the Central Galilee and Upper Galilee in the early afternoon. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and others fell in open areas, it added.
