Israel, Lebanon's Hezbollah engage in cross-border skirmishes

The Israeli military and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah engaged in cross-border skirmishes on Saturday, with both claiming to have hit each other's positions along the frontier.

The latest fighting came a day after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that Israel's war in the Gaza Strip could turn into a regional conflict if Israel pushed on with its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had struck "two terrorist cells" and a Hezbollah post after an attempted attack from Lebanon.

"In response to two terrorist cells attempting to fire from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, the [Israeli military] struck the cells and a Hezbollah observation post," a military statement said.

It said it had also responded to mortar fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, where no casualties were reported.

Hezbollah said it had simultaneously attacked five Israeli positions along the border.

Hours later it announced a new attack on the al-Abbad Israeli position without specifying what kind of weapon was used.

Israel's military said in a new statement that its fighter jets struck "terror targets" of Hezbollah, accompanied by tank and artillery fire.

"The Hezbollah targets struck include terror infrastructure, rocket storage sites and military compounds," it said.

Hezbollah chief blames US

The Lebanon-Israel border has seen regular cross-border shelling over the past month, with firing between the Israeli military on one side and the powerful Hezbollah and its allies on the other.

In his first speech since the Gaza war broke out four weeks ago, Nasrallah warned on Friday that "all options" were open for an expansion of the conflict to Lebanon as he blamed the United States for the war in the strip.

"America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people, and Israel is simply a tool of execution," Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast, calling the conflict "decisive".

"Whoever wants to prevent a regional war - and this is addressed to the Americans - must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza," he said.

Israel has occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, for decades and has carried out several previous assaults on the enclave.

The current war in the strip began on 7 October, when Hamas and other Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack inside Israel, killing more than 1,400 people.

The Israeli military has since waged a devastating war again Gaza, killing nearly 9,500 people there.