Israel says another rocket barrage from Lebanon killed 2 in Israel

Associated Press Tel Aviv: Israel's rescue service said projectiles fired from Lebanon on Thursday killed two more people in northern Israel, raising death toll there to seven in what's been the deadliest rocket barrage since the Israeli military's invasion of southern Lebanon. Magen David Adom, Israel's main emergency medical organization, said its medics confirmed the deaths of a 30-year-old man and 60-year-old woman in a suburb of the northern city of Haifa. They also treated two other people who suffered mild injuries and were hospitalized.

The Israeli military said that roughly 25 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon as part of the volley that struck an olive grove where people had gathered for the harvest. The deadly attack came just hours after officials in Metula, in northern Israel, said that five people were killed, including four foreign workers, in a rocket barrage Thursday that struck an Israeli agricultural area. The back-to-back attacks made Thursday one of the deadliest days for civilians in Israel since the Israeli military invaded southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 as part of a widening campaign against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group.

The attack came as senior US diplomats were in the region to push for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East in the Biden administration's final months. The Hezbollah militant group has been firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel, and drawing retaliatory strikes, since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies backed by Iran.