JERUSALEM (Reuters) -A guided-missile attack from Lebanon killed a 60-year-old farmer in northern Israel on Thursday, Israel's public broadcaster Kan said, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Beirut would be turned "into Gaza" if Hezbollah started an all-out war.
The Israeli army said Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah fighters carried out the anti-tank attack. Hezbollah said later in a statement that one of the 11 attacks it carred out on Thursday targeted an Israeli barracks in Matat, a village abutting the Lebanese border.
Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said it pronounced the man's death at Fassuta about 3 km (1.8 miles) from Matat, which the Israeli military had reported coming under a missile attack. Israeli helicopters, tanks and artillery retaliated against the source of fire across the border.
"If Hezbollah chooses to start an all-out war then it will by its own hand turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis," Netanyahu said while visiting troops near the border.
It was not immediately clear whether Netanyahu was speaking to the soldiers when the civilian was killed or whether he was anywhere near where the missile struck. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Hezbollah announced numerous attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday that it said were in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
The Palestinian Hamas militant group carried out an Oct. 7 assault on Israel, prompting an Israel retaliatory offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Iran backs both Hamas and Hezbollah.
(Reporting by Dan Williams and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Maggie Fick in Beirut; Editing by Howard Goller)
