BEIRUT AND DHAIRA, LEBANON — Lebanese army and international forces bolstered troop numbers, stepped up patrols and declared a state of alert Thursday after an early-morning rocket attack on Israel from southern Lebanon threatened to widen the ongoing Gaza Strip conflict.
The rocket fire, which struck a nursing home and slightly injured at least two civilians, resurrected memories of the destructive 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah, an ally of the Gaza-based militant group Hamas.
Minutes after the attack, Israel responded by firing at least six artillery shells at the suspected launch site. Both Lebanese and Israeli authorities shut down schools in the area for fear of a military escalation as Israeli fighter jets flew low along the border.
There was no claim of responsibility for the rocket attack. Hezbollah and the major Palestinian organizations based in Lebanon denied any role. Only one small group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, would neither affirm nor deny any part in the attack.
"We hope that it won't become an action that makes the situation more complicated," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Thursday in Madrid as he toured world capitals in a quest for a Gaza cease-fire.
The Israeli army confirmed the rocket attack and return fire. A statement said Israel "regards the government of Lebanon and its army as responsible for preventing attacks on Israel."
Analysts said it was possible Hezbollah could have allowed a minor Palestinian group to launch the attack as a warning to Israel, or to test the Jewish state in a small but symbolic action to see whether it was gearing up for another round of battle in the two adversaries' long-running confrontation.
"They're slowly sending out feelers to test Israel's readiness for a possible war against Hezbollah," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a British-Lebanese researcher and scholar who has written extensively about Hezbollah. "They're just playing a war of nerves with Israel."
The incident underscored the fragility of the peace along the Israeli-Lebanese border, and the mounting suspicions on each side that the other will widen the scope of the Gaza conflict, which began Dec. 27.
"It is safe to assume that Palestinian operatives, working in coordination with Hezbollah and sponsored by Iran, are responsible for the rocket attacks in Nahariya and elsewhere in the north," Yoav Stern, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz, wrote on the paper's website Thursday.
