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Israel hit by rocket fired from Lebanon, returns fire

JERUSALEM — At least one rocket fired from Lebanon fell in northern Israel on Sunday without causing damage or injury, and Israel responded with artillery fire, according to the Israeli military, in the latest disruption of a fragile cease-fire that has kept the area largely quiet for the last seven years.

The Israeli military said that five rockets were launched and one appeared to have landed in an open area near the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shimona. The military said it fired dozens of shells toward the source of the rocket fire.

The Lebanese armed forces issued a statement saying that two rockets were fired from the Hasbaya area of southern Lebanon and that the Israeli military responded with 32 shells directed toward the sources of fire, without causing casualties, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency.

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The attack came about two weeks after a Lebanese army soldier fatally shot an Israeli soldier who was driving along the Israeli side of the border, after which Israeli forces fired back into Lebanon.

The Israeli and Lebanese authorities and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon described the killing as the individual act of a rogue soldier and quickly worked to defuse tensions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Sunday that Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for fire emanating from its territory and also pointed a finger at Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shi'ite militia that fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, indirectly implicating it in Sunday's rocket fire.

"What is happening in Lebanon is that Hezbollah is stationing thousands of missiles and rockets in apartments, in the heart of the civilian population, and is thus perpetrating two war crimes simultaneously," Netanyahu said. "It is organizing the firing at civilians, just as it did today, and it is hiding behind civilians as human shields."

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He added that the Lebanese government and army were "not lifting a finger to prevent this arming and these crimes."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's attack, though those in recent years generally appear to have been the work of small militant groups in Lebanon rather than of Hezbollah.

In August, four rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel for the first time in two years. A militant group called the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam, an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed credit. Israel responded to that attack by bombing what military officials here described as a "terrorist site" between the Lebanese cities of Beirut and Sidon.

The Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said Sunday that Israel would not tolerate fire from Lebanese territory and would use more force if necessary.

"I do not recommend that anyone test our patience and our determination to preserve the security of Israeli citizens," he said in a statement.

Notwithstanding the heightened tensions and harsh rhetoric, an Israeli expert said that neither Israel nor Hezbollah, which is currently embroiled in the civil war in Syria, had an interest now in a full-blown confrontation on the Israeli-Lebanese front.