International News

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A rocket was fired from south Lebanon towards Israel on Sunday, Lebanese security sources said, and residents of a northern Israeli town reported hearing a blast.

"An explosion was heard. Soldiers are searching the area. The cause is still being investigated," an Israeli military spokeswoman said. A second Israeli military source said the explosion was probably caused by a mortar.

The incident came amid heightened tensions in the region over Syria's civil war. Damascus has said it will respond to Israeli air strikes earlier this month against suspected Iranian missiles in Syria destined for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The rocket launch could be heard from the Lebanese town of Marjayoun, about 10 km (six miles) from the Israeli border, residents in the Lebanese town said.

Earlier on Sunday, two rockets were fired into a Shi'ite district of southern Beirut after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged his Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group would fight in Syria until victory for President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad is battling a two-year rebellion in which the United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed.

(Reporting by Karamallah Daher in Marjayoun and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; editing by Andrew Roche)