Israel Hits Beirut With 'Targeted Strike'

The Israeli military says Hezbollah fired more than 150 rockets into Israel from Lebanon on Friday, the day after the group's leader vowed that there would be retribution for the dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries caused by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies. Many of the projectiles were intercepted and there were no reports of injuries, but the military urged people in some parts of northern Israel to stay near bomb shelters, the Times of Israel reports. Hezbollah said it was targeting military sites.

• Reuters reports that the Israeli military hit Beirut Friday with what it said was a "targeted strike." Witnesses said there blasts in the city's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
• On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said airstrikes on Lebanon had hit around 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers and other infrastructure, the Washington Post reports. According to Lebanon's state-run news agency, there were 52 Israeli airstrikes on the country Thursday.

• The New York Times reports that United Nations peacekeeping forces are trying to reduce tensions after what spokesman Andrea Tenenti describes as a "heavy intensification in exchanges of fire." The AP notes that fire has been exchanged across the border almost daily since the day after last year's Hamas attack on Israel, but it has been much heavier than usual over the last 24 hours.
• Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Hezbollah is struggling to regroup from the explosions of the devices it had issued to thousands of members. The sources say the group is trying to find a safe method of communication while investigating whether moles leaked information to Israel about the procurement of the devices. The Journal notes that the attacks followed the group's "decision to switch to the comparatively low-tech devices in an effort to avoid the surveillance risks of smartphones."

(More Lebanon stories.)