Damage from Katyusha in N. Israel (file)
Damage from Katyusha in N. Israel (file)Flash 90

As the rocket fire from Gaza terrorists continues to pelt southern and central Israel, a new front appears to have opened Friday morning as a Katyusha rocket was fired on the northern tip of Israel, north of Kiryat Shmona.

The rocket landed in open territory in the upper Galilee. Apparently the IDF estimates it was fired by local terror groups supporting Hamas, and not by the Iran-proxy Hezbollah terror group, reports Walla!.

Residents of the region report having heard explosions, although no injuries or damage was reported from the rocket. IDF forces are searching the area to locate the point of contact and rule out further rocket attacks.

"One projectile hit an open space near Kfar Yuval, between Metula and Kiryat Shmona," a military spokeswoman told AFP, listing two towns near Israel's northern border.

The IDF returned artillery fire later in the morning, targeting locations in Lebanon suspected of being the source of the rocket fire.

In a statement, the Lebanese army declared a total of three rockets were fired on Israel by "an unknown group" from the Marjayun-Hasbaya region of southern Lebanon, reports AFP.

The Lebanese army has deployed troops to patrol and search the area, where they "managed to find rocket launch pads, as well as two rockets ready for launching. A military expert arrived at the scene and dismantled the projectiles," according to the statement.

A Lebanese security source told AFP earlier that after the rockets, "the Israelis fired back, launching some 25 shells at the outskirts of Kfar Shuba," referring to a town by the border. "No one was hurt, the shelling hit the fields, not houses. The situation at the border is now calm, and one man has been detained by the security forces for questioning."

On the Gaza front, the rockets continued to pummel Israel, extending their reach ever farther north as rocket sirens were heard in Haifa over Thursday night, making it the first time since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

Terrorists in Gaza have fired 407 mortars and rockets that hit Israel, with another 118 rockets being shot down by the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system since the start of Operation Protective Edge on Monday, according to an IDF spokesperson.

The rocket fire overnight was particularly intense on Israel's south, and the IDF struck several hundred more terror sites in Gaza, bringing the total number of sites hit by the IDF since the start of the operation to 1,100.

A senior IDF source on Thursday morning said the rate of striking terror sites in Gaza has been one strike every four and a half minutes, and that the IDF intends to continue that pace in coming days.

"We see a picture in which Hamas is trying to create a surprise by any means possible," said the source. "The moment Hamas and Gaza residents see the great damage to the Strip, they will understand that all the troubles they took in recent years collapsed and were destroyed, and that will speak for itself."