Israel and Hezbollah Exchange Strikes Amid Fears of Escalation: Live Updates

An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said on social media the rockets had hit a civilian neighborhood that was not near a military target. “Attacks against our civilians will not go unanswered,” he said

Magen David Adom, the Israeli emergency medical service, said a 30-year-man in Katzrin had been treated for shrapnel wounds and was taken to a hospital.

The strikes by both sides, and the Israeli official’s threat of further retaliation, highlighted how months of diplomatic efforts have failed to ease hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border. And they came as the Biden administration has intensified its push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in hopes of averting a broader Middle East war, although Israeli and Hamas officials have been cool to the latest U.S. proposal.

The most recent Israeli strikes landed about 40 to 60 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border in the Bekaa Valley, deeper inside Lebanon than many of the near-daily attacks the two countries have exchanged since the war in Gaza began. Hezbollah, like other groups in the region backed by Iran, has been attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas is also backed by Iran.

The military said it had detected secondary explosions after its strikes on Wednesday, which it said indicated that there were large amounts of weapons at the sites. At least three areas were targeted, including the town of Nabi Chit, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency.

On Monday, the Israeli military also said it had targeted a number of Hezbollah’s weapons storage facilities in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said those strikes injured nearly a dozen people, including two children.

Bachir Khodr, the governor of the region where the strikes hit, said he could not comment on Israel’s targets but that residential homes had been damaged.

Mr. Khodr said that local officials had met after the strikes and were preparing for the possibility of a wider war, though people in the area were not in “panic mode.”

“We hope it doesn’t happen, but in case it does, we are ready,” said Mr. Khodr, who added that the authorities had made plans to relocate civilians, distribute food and water and maintain health services.

In a separate strike on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had killed a commander in the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group associated with the Palestinian Fatah faction that has fought alongside Hezbollah. The commander, Khalil al-Miqdah, who was killed in the strike in the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon, worked closely with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, the Israeli military said in a statement. That claim could not be independently verified, though the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades confirmed Mr. al-Miqdah’s death in a statement.

The attack on Katzrin involved numerous rockets, most of which did not get through the air defenses, the Israeli military said. A few did, shattering the morning. Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, a spokesman, said the rockets had hit two houses as their occupants were sitting down to breakfast.

Inbar Kedem, who comes from Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, was on a camping trip with friends in the Golan Heights near Katzrin when he saw some of the rockets being intercepted by air defenses. He said such events were routine in Israel now.

“This is a classic day in the war,” said Mr. Kedem, who was just discharged from the Israeli Air Force. “Just a little more intense.”