Israel, Lebanon's Hizbollah engage in cross-border clashes

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli military and powerful Lebanese movement Hizbollah engaged in cross-border clashes on Saturday, with both claiming to have hit each other's positions along the frontier.

The latest skirmishes came a day after Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip could turn into a regional conflict if Israel pushed on with its offensive in the Palestinian territory.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had struck "two terrorist cells" and a Hizbollah post after an attempted attack from Lebanon.

Hizbollah said it had simultaneously attacked five Israeli positions along the border.

Hours later it announced a new attack on the Al Abbad Israeli position without specifying what kind of weapon was used.

Hizbollah chief blames US 

The Lebanon-Israel border has seen regular cross-border shelling over the past month, with firing between the Israeli military on one side and the powerful Hizbollah and its allies on the other.

In his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war broke out four weeks ago, Nasrallah warned on Friday that "all options" were open for an expansion of the conflict to Lebanon as he blamed the United States for the war in Gaza.

"America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people, and Israel is simply a tool of execution," Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast, calling the conflict "decisive".

"Whoever wants to prevent a regional war, and this is addressed to the Americans, must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza," he said.