BEIRUT — Two Syrian rockets struck Lebanon Tuesday, causing damage and heightening tensions between Lebanese Shiite and Sunni communities over neighboring Syria’s civil war, security officials in Beirut said.



Rockets apparently fired by Syrian rebels have hit mostly Shiite areas in Lebanon several times in the past two weeks. One salvo killed at least two people.



Tuesday’s rocket attack came hours after two leading Lebanese Sunni Muslim clerics called for holy war, or jihad, in Syria. They appealed to fighters to protect Sunnis in villages under attack by Syrian troops and pro-government Shiite gunmen.



Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries that are easily enflamed. Lebanon, a country plagued by decades of strife, has been on edge since the uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad erupted in March 2011.



In Israel, a senior military intelligence official said that Assad used chemical weapons last month against rebels. It was the first time that Israel has accused the embattled Syrian leader of using his stockpile of non-conventional weapons. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun of Israeli military intelligence told a security conference in Tel Aviv, “To the best of our professional understanding, the regime used lethal chemical weapons against the militants in a series of incidents over the past months.”



“Shrunken pupils, foaming at the mouth and other signs indicate, in our view, that lethal chemical weapons were used,” he said.



The officials in Beirut said one of the rockets Tuesday hit a house under construction on the edge of the northeastern town of Hermel near the Lebanon-Syria border. The other fell in a field, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.



In Syria, the fate of two priests who were kidnapped Monday in the northern province of Aleppo is still unknown.



It was not immediately clear who abducted Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and John Ibrahim of the Assyrian Orthodox Church, said Greek Orthodox Bishop Tony Yazigi. He said the two were abducted from the village of Kfar Dael. — AP