Beirut: Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Israeli warplanes have attacked a Palestinian base in the country’s east, near the border with Syria.
The report says there were three strikes early on Monday, minutes apart, that struck a base for a Syrian-backed group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the strike, which the agency said hit near the Lebanese village of Qusaya in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
The strike comes amid heightened regional tensions and a day after one alleged Israeli drone crashed in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut while another exploded and crashed nearby.
Airstrikes by Israel against Palestinian factions in Lebanon, such as this one, have been rare in the past years.
Gaza also targetted
Also, Israeli warplanes hit the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas movement early Monday claiming it was a response to earlier rocket fire from the territory into Israel, the army said in a statement.
Israeli authorities also announced a punitive reduction in the flow of fuel to the strip’s main power station, meaning a deep cut in the already rationed electricity supply.
Three rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Sunday night, the Israeli army said.
“Three launches were identified from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory,” it said in a statement. “Two of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defence system.”
“In response, a short while ago, (Israeli air force) fighter jets struck a number of terror targets in a Hamas military compound in the northern Gaza Strip, including the office of a Hamas battalion commander,” a statement Monday morning added.
A Palestinian security source said there were no casualties.
Fuel supply cut
A separate statement from Israeli defence ministry unit COGAT said the latest fuel cut was personally ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also defence minister.
“The prime minister and minister of defence, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered to downsize the transfer of fuel through the Kerem Shalom (border) crossing to the power station in Gaza by half, effective this morning and until further notice,” it said in English.
Netanyahu is fighting for reelection in a potentially tough general election on September 17 with critics from his right-wing power base calling for tougher action against the Islamist Hamas.
Nevertheless, analysts say, he is anxious to avoid escalation ahead of the polls.
Israel has launched three brutal assaults on Gaza since 2008.
Uptick in violence
Since the start of August, an uptick in rocket fire and Palestinian attempts to cross from Gaza into Israel have been met with Israeli strikes, threatening a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Israel has also used fishing restrictions and fuel supplies as weapons, harshening and easing restrictions on the blockaded coastal strip according to circumstances.
Fuel deliveries, which are coordinated with the United Nations and paid for by Gulf state Qatar, were part of the truce agreement.
They have improved electricity supply in the enclave, where until the latest cut residents were getting around 12 hours of power a day, according to the UN.
In the past, the daily power supply was regularly as low as six hours.
