BEIRUT (AFP) — Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Lebanon in response to a rocket attack while defending against a missile fired from Yemen on Saturday as its ally United States attacked the latter’s airport.

Dismissing the militant group Hezbollah’s denial of responsibility for the launch of rockets into its southern neighbor, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered “a second wave of strikes against dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon” in retaliation, the defense ministry said, in the largest escalation since a 27 November ceasefire.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported one girl among five people killed in an Israeli strike during the day on the southern town of Touline.

The agency later said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre, targeted in the second wave of strikes on the south and east, with multiple injuries also reported.

Bilal Kachmar, spokesperson for the Tyre Disaster Management Unit, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) two people were killed and two wounded when “an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Al-Raml neighborhood of Tyre,” a key coastal city targeted for the first time since the ceasefire.

A security source told AFP that a Hezbollah official was targeted in the Tyre strike, without confirming whether he had been killed.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said early on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen after air raid sirens sounded in several areas across the country.

The Houthis had threatened to escalate attacks in support of Palestinians following Israel’s renewal of attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began on Tuesday.

Houthi rebel media in Yemen accused the United States Saturday of attacking the airport in Hodeida, the latest such claim since Washington announced heavy strikes against the rebels one week ago.

Al-Masirah TV, blaming “American aggression,” said three attacks had targeted the airport in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast.

Between Wednesday and Friday the Iran-backed rebels’ television channel made similar accusations, after the US Central Command on Wednesday confirmed “continuous operations” against the rebels and President Donald Trump said they will be “annihilated.”

On 15 March, the US announced a wave of air strikes that officials said killed senior Houthi leaders, and which the rebels’ health ministry said killed 53 people.

The strikes, the first since Trump resumed office, came after the rebels threatened to renew attacks on Israeli shipping.