JERUSALEM, March 22, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The mayor of Israel's northern border town of Metula criticised the government Saturday after the area was targeted with rocket
fire from Lebanon, and called for a return to war.

"We will not return to the reality of October 6th ... and this is what the IDF, the Northern Command, and the Israeli government are trying to normalise," Metula mayor David
Azoulay told AFP, referring to the day before the Hamas attack on southern Israel in 2023.

A truce on November 27, 2024, ended two months of all-out war between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah earlier opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023 in support of Hamas after its attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

Metula, a town of 2,400 residents, was evacuated during more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel's military and Hezbollah.

Azoulay said that since the November truce, just eight percent of Metula's population had returned, and that some residents left again on Saturday after the rocket fire.

"This is a failure, and it's exactly the policy of containment of (what led to) October 7," he said.

The mayor called on the Israeli authorities to "act offensively and make it so that not one bullet is fired ever again at northern communities".

"As far as I'm concerned, we should return to war, even if one bullet is fired towards Israel," he said.

Israel's military said on Saturday it had struck "dozens of Hezbollah rocket launchers" in southern Lebanon.

An official said six rockets were fired, and three crossed into Israel and were intercepted.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered strikes against "dozens of terrorist targets" in Lebanon in response to the fire, which has not yet
been claimed by any group.

An Israeli military spokesperson said Saturday's projectiles were the first to be fired from Lebanon at Israel since the truce took effect at the end of November.