JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel said on Sunday it would strike hard against Hezbollah after accusing the Iran-backed group of killing 12 children and teenagers in a rocket attack on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza, which has since spread to several fronts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended a visit to the United States early and was expected to land in Israel later on Sunday and convene his security cabinet on Sunday afternoon to discuss Israel’s response.
In the meantime, families gathered for funerals in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.
The football pitch was hit on Saturday evening. Hezbollah had earlier announced it had fired rockets at Israeli military sites, but swiftly denied involvement in the attack on Majdal Shams, saying it had “absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard.”
“Contrary to its denials, Hezbollah is the entity that is unequivocally responsible for yesterday’s massacre,” Israel’s foreign ministry said. “The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal.”
An Israeli military spokesperson had earlier told reporters that forensics showed the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq-1. Hezbollah had announced firing a Falaq-1 missile on Saturday, saying it had aimed at an Israeli military headquarters.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visited Majdal Shams and said: “We will hit the enemy hard.”
The Israeli military said the rocket launch was carried out from an area located north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon.
Several aerial attacks hit towns in southern Lebanon and one location in the vast eastern Bekaa Valley overnight and into Sunday morning, according to security sources in Lebanon.
Israel’s military said it struck a series of Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon overnight but any large-scale operations would likely require security cabinet approval.
‘CATASTROPHE BEYOND BELIEF’
The United States, which has been leading diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border, condemned it as a horrific attack but did not directly accuse Hezbollah.
The statement from the White House said U.S. support for Israel’s security was iron-clad and that it would “continue to support efforts to end these terrible attacks along the Blue Line, which must be a top priority”. The Blue Line refers to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.
The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon and the head of a U.N. peace-keeping force in Lebanon urged for maximum restraint on the Lebanese-Israeli border early Sunday.
U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and UNIFIL force commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro warned that further intensification of strikes “could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief.”
A senior diplomat focused on Lebanon said all efforts were now needed to avoid an all-out war.
The conflict has forced tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel to leave their homes. Israeli strikes have killed some 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists.
The Israeli military said after Saturday’s attack the death toll among civilians killed in Hezbollah attacks had risen to 23 since October, along with at least 17 soldiers.
Iran warned Israel on Sunday against what it called any “new adventure” in Lebanon, in a statement issued by foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani.
Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East and started opened a second front against Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault.
Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama’a Islamiya.
More than 40,000 people live on the Israeli-occupied Golan, more than half of them Druze residents. The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Editing by William Maclean)
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