[NAHARNET] Hezbollah said Sunday that it staged two separate rocket attacks on Israel's Kiryat Shmona and a third on the Shamir settlement further north, in response to the "massacre" in the southern town of Froun that killed three Lebanese Civil Defense members and wounded two others.On Saturday, Lebanon's health ministry said three emergency responders were killed and two others wounded, one of them critically, in an Israeli strike on Froun.
The ministry said the attack had targeted "a Lebanese civil defense team that was putting out fires sparked by the recent Israeli strikes," while the Israeli military said it had "eliminated terrorists" from the Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement in Froun.
Lebanon's civil defense agency said three of its employees were killed in "an Israeli strike that targeted a firefighting vehicle after they had finished a firefighting mission."
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack, saying in a statement that "this new aggression against Lebanon is a blatant violation of international laws... and human values."
The Israeli military on Sunday morning announced it had carried out a series of air strikes on "Hezbollah military structures" and intercepted projectiles launched from Lebanon during the night.
In Froun on Saturday, an Israeli military statement claimed Israeli forces "struck and eliminated" Amal members who "operated within a Hezbollah military structure." The Amal movement for its part said two of its members were among the three Lebanese Civil Defense emergency responders killed in Saturday's strike. It said they were killed "while carrying out their humanitarian and national duty defending Lebanon and the south."
The Lebanese health ministry statement condemned the "blatant Israeli attack that targeted a team from an official body of the Lebanese state."
It added that the attack was "the second of its kind against an emergency team in less than 12 hours."