������

The Lebanese group Hezbollah launched rocket strikes on Saturday in what it said was a response to Israeli strikes against villages in Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it had destroyed an Israeli tank and bombed military bases and logistical depots in northern Israel.

On Friday one person was killed and four others, including children, were injured in an Israeli strike on the town of Al-Ahmadiya in the west of the Biqaa Valley region in Lebanon.

Israeli strikes on a building in Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon also injured 13 people.

On Saturday morning, the Israeli army said that 55 rockets from Lebanon had crossed into Israel, adding that some of them had been intercepted and that Israel had targeted the launchpad from where they were launched.

Hezbollah said that it had targeted an Israeli base west of Tiberias. Some of the Hezbollah rockets launched at Israel on Saturday morning hit near an Israeli town which had not been evacuated.

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which began shortly after the Gaza war broke out last October has escalated recently, with Israel repeatedly threatening to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon.

On Saturday, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Israel’s war cabinet discussed for the first time potential military targets in Lebanon. An anonymous Israeli security source also told Channel 12 that Israel “should prepare for a long war” with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Times of Israel reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning to make the return of thousands of Israelis forced from their homes in northern Israel as a result of the fighting an “official war goal”.

An estimated 110,000 people have been displaced in southern Lebanon with around 601 people killed.

Around 60,000 people in northern Israel have fled their homes as a result of Hezbollah attacks, with 23 killed.