Rocket launcher found near Marjayoun in Lebanon

The Lebanese army said on Friday it found and dismantled a rocket launcher in the Marjayoun area of southern Lebanon, reported Xinhua.

The army said in a tweet that an army unit found a launcher containing a number of rockets yet to be fired, and work was underway to dismantle it.

Photos attached to the tweet showed that the launcher was found in a grove, and there were six rockets remaining in the weapon capable of launching 12 projectiles.

On Thursday evening, several rockets were fired from the Lebanese district of Marjeyoun into northern Israel. It came after dozens of rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, prompting the Israeli army to shell the outskirts of the southern Lebanese town of al-Qulayla with artillery.

This was one of the worst rocket attacks at northern Israel since the full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese group, in 2006.

Israel accused Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, of being behind the rocket attacks launched from southern Lebanon after Hezbollah denied doing so. On early Friday morning, Israeli warplanes launched three missiles in retaliation at the Tyre region in southern Lebanon.

On the same day, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stated that his country rejects any military escalation from its lands and the use of Lebanese territories to carry out operations that may jeopardize the country's stability.

He added that the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon were "intensifying their investigations to uncover the circumstances of the operation and arrest the perpetrators."