LEAD: Rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel

Nov 29, 2011, 19:27 GMT

Tel Aviv - Rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel early Tuesday, the Israeli military said.

'A short while ago, a number of rockets hit the Western Galilee. No casualties were reported,' the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

'The IDF regards this incident as severe, and holds the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Army responsible for preventing any rocket fire toward Israel,' it said.

The Lebanese army command confirmed that one rocket was fired by 'unknown assailants' into Israel from within its borders, and said it was investigating.

The IDF said it returned artillery fire at the apparent launch sites in southern Lebanon.

A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said it was the first rocket fired from Lebanon into northern Israel since October 2009.

Three or four rockets landed in Western Galilee shortly after midnight, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Two hit an agricultural area in the village of Netu'ah, where a fragment hit a chicken coop and killed dozens of chicks, a third hit the village of Ber'init, a few hundred metres from the border with Lebanon, he said.

Police were combing the area early Tuesday for a possible fourth rocket. Four explosions were heard.

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