JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Wednesday its fighter jets “began a series of strikes in Lebanon”, raising fears of a war between the two countries after months of cross-border fire.

The strikes came hours after fire from Lebanon wounded multiple people in northern Israel, according to medics.

Seven people were wounded, five of them in the town of Safed, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

Fighter jets struck a series of “Hezbollah terror targets” in the areas of Jabal El Braij, Houneh, Dunin, Adchit and Sawwaneh, the military said.

Lebanese media reported air raids on southern villages including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh.

An AFP photographer saw medics and troops evacuating a wounded person by military helicopter from Safed’s Ziv hospital.

There was no immediate claim for the rocket launches from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli troops since the outbreak of the war in Gaza more than four months ago.

Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said after meeting commanders near the border with Lebanon that Israel’s “next campaign will be very much on the offensive, and we will use all the tools and all capabilities”.

“We are intensifying the strikes all the time, and Hezbollah are paying an increasingly heavy price,” he said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said that fire from southern Lebanon will end “when the attack on Gaza stops and there is a ceasefire” between the group’s Palestinian allies Hamas and arch-foe Israel.