Two buildings in Israel’s western Galilee area were damaged, Israeli media said, but there were no reports of casualties. Residents said they heard two explosions and that houses shook. Israel’s Ynet news website said residents saw plumes of smoke where the rockets struck.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack. The Israel military said at least two of the rockets landed on Israeli soil, and that Israeli guns shelled the area where the fire had originated. The Lebanese army said the rocket launchers were found in the Rumaysh area of south Lebanon.
In Lebanon, security sources said four Katyusha rockets were fired into Israel from an area between the villages of Aita Shaab and Rmeish, about 2 km (1 mile) from the border.
They said Israel fired four artillery shells in response, but they landed in fields and caused no damage.
UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, said it had deployed extra troops and patrols in the area and called for restraint. “This is a serious incident in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and is clearly directed at undermining stability in the area,” UNIFIL said in a statement.
Israel said it was trying to establish who fired the rockets from Lebanon, but that it held the Lebanese government responsible and would deliver a complaint.
“The Lebanese government is responsible for everything that happens in Lebanon and everything that exits from its border,” Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said.
The flare-up comes at a time when the entire region is engulfed in violence and upheaval, with thousands killed in the regime’s crackdown on protesters in Syria and after popular uprisings ousted longtime rulers in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.
The Israeli military said it did not expect Tuesday’s incident to touch off a wider conflict with Lebanon. In a statement, however, it said it regarded the attack as “severe” and held the Lebanese government and army responsible for preventing rocket fire at Israel.
“Several rockets hit western Galilee. The Israeli army considers the incident severe and is targeting the origins of fire,” said a statement from the military spokesman’s office.
The Israeli-Lebanese border has been largely quiet in recent years, though some have worried about a possible spillover of tensions from a months-old revolt in Syria against President Bashar Assad and from a stiffening of Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
An Israeli military spokesman said the rockets were the first fired since 2009 across a border where a 34-day war was fought in 2006 between Israel and Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for any attacks since the end of the fighting, but smaller militant organizations, some Palestinian and some linked to Al-Qaeda, have launched rockets on several occasions.
None of the rocket attacks has caused serious casualties.
But in August 2010, two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and an Israeli soldier were killed in a brief border clash touched off by Lebanese army fire toward an Israeli military base.
Overall, however, the border has been largely quiet but tense since the 2006 war, which was sparked by a deadly cross-border attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli military patrol.
Israel bombed the group’s strongholds and Hezbollah barraged northern Israel with nearly 4,000 rockets.
About 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis were killed in the conflict, which ended with a UN-brokered truce that sent thousands of Lebanese troops and international peacekeepers to south Lebanon.
Although the cease-fire agreement forbade Hezbollah to rearm, Israel contends the group has since replenished its arsenal with even more powerful weapons.
