JERUSALEM Rocket attacks fired from Lebanon killed seven people in northern Israel on Thursday, hitting farmland repeatedly along the border and near the city of Haifa, officials said, representing the deadliest wave of attacks from Lebanon since the Israeli military launched a series of attacks. invaded the country earlier this month.

The violence came as senior US diplomats were in the region Pressing for ceasefires in Lebanon and GazaBiden hopes to see an end to the wars in the Middle East in the final months of his administration. Pressure is mounting ahead of next week’s US elections.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles at Israel since a Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7 triggered Israel’s invasion and bombing of Palestinian territory, prompting violent Israeli retaliatory strikes. is exposed. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Israel’s regional enemy, Iran. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for Thursday’s rocket attack.

The conflict on Israel’s northern border has escalated into a full-scale war, with Israel taking action last month. wave of heavy air strikes The incident that killed the senior leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon Hassan Nasrallahand most of the MPs. Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon on October 1. Last year, Israel’s expanding campaign against Hezbollah killed 2,800 people in Lebanon, injured nearly 13,000 and devastated Lebanese towns near the border.

Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon since Israel escalated tensions in September. Hezbollah’s intensified rocket attacks against Israel have forced 60,000 Israelis to evacuate from communities near the border. More than a year after the war, they remain displaced.

On Thursday, shells from Lebanon hit an agricultural field in Israel’s northernmost town of Metula, killing four foreign workers and an Israeli farmer in the deadliest attack since Israel launched its land invasion.

Metula residents were evacuated in October 2023, leaving only security guards and agricultural workers.

The Helpline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities were putting them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.

Hours later, the Israeli military said about 25 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon and attacked an olive grove in a suburb of the northern port city of Haifa.

Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency medical provider, said a 30-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman were killed and two others were injured in the second attack on Thursday. Israeli media reported that the victims had gathered to pick olives at the time of the attack.

The agricultural areas on the Israeli border, where most of the country’s orchards are located, are closed military zones patrolled by Israeli troops and can only be entered with official permission. For the few remaining residents in the area, daily life is disrupted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system intercepting missiles and the constant blaring of sirens signaling incoming rocket fire.

However, local authorities in Israel largely support the continuation of the ground operation in southern Lebanon.

Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s special advisor on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, is pushing for a ceasefire agreement to address the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“If the Israeli government accepts an agreement brought by Amos Hochstein… we cannot accept it, because for us it means rehabilitating Hezbollah on our borders,” said Eitan Davidi, mayor of the northern town of Margaliot. Air raid sirens wailed repeatedly on Thursday. “Hezbollah is opening fire on civilians and farmers and shooting innocent farmers working in the fields.”

Hezbollah’s newly appointed leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a video statement on Wednesday that the militant group will continue to fight Israel until it is offered ceasefire terms it deems acceptable. He said it was recovering from a series of setbacks in recent months. Attacks using explosive pagers and walkie-talkies This was widely blamed on Israel.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities still exist and are suitable for a long war,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more parts of southern Lebanon as eight people were killed in airstrikes in different parts of the country, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

Thousands of people have fled Baalbek, the main city in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, and surrounding areas in the last 24 hours following Israeli evacuation warnings.

Jean Fakhry, a local official in the Deir al-Ahmar district in the Bekaa Valley, said Israeli airstrikes that hit the area had turned the main highway into a “parking lot” of cars stuck in traffic. About 12,000 displaced people remain in the area, he said, and most have taken shelter in private homes.

Families with luggage continued to arrive at one of the shelters in Deir al-Ahmar on Thursday.

“Our houses were destroyed,” said Zahraa Yunus from the village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing; no clothes or anything.”

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Tawil from Deir al-Ahmar, Lebanon. Associated Press writer Eleanor H. Reich in New York contributed to this report.

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