Rockets hit Israel from Lebanon, no casualties

TYRE, Lebanon (Reuters) - At least two rockets from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Friday, prompting Israeli artillery to shell the fruit groves from which they were fired, security officials on both sides of the border said.

No casualties were reported by Israeli police, who said two rockets landed. Lebanese security sources, who reported at least two outgoing missiles and 15 incoming Israeli shells, did not say who might have fired the rockets.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that Israel fired about a dozen artillery rounds in response to several rockets.

The Israeli army holds the Lebanese government responsible for preventing such attacks, the spokesman said.

It was the first time since February that rockets had been fired from Lebanon into Israel, raising tensions along a border that remains volatile three years after a war between the Jewish state and Hezbollah Islamist guerrillas in Lebanon.

Occasional salvoes since then have been blamed by Israeli, Lebanese and U.N. peacekeeping forces in the area largely on fringe militant groups rather than on Hezbollah, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shi'ite movement which remains a powerful force in Lebanon, especially in the south.

Both Washington and the United Nations condemned the violence and urged continued adherence to a 2006 truce that ended a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.

P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said the rocket fire was in "clear violation" of that cease-fire and showed "the urgent need to bring arms in Lebanon under control of the state."

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged both sides, in a statement, to exercise restraint and said U.N. peacekeeping troops known as UNIFIL were "investigating the circumstances of the incident."

During Israel's offensive against Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip in January, Hezbollah denied responsibility for several rockets fired from Lebanon. Security officials have said small groups active among Palestinian refugees or with links to al Qaeda were more likely to have mounted the attacks.

(Reporting by Nadim Ladki and Tom Perry in Beirut and Ori Lewis and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jersualem; writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Charles Dick)