Residents rush to help injured children moments after a rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Shams)
MAJDAL SHAMS — Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to “hit the enemy hard” after rocket fire from Lebanon killed 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and again raised fears that the war in Gaza will spread.
Iran warned Israel any new military “adventures” in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences.” Western powers, including France and Germany, condemned the attack and appealed for calm.
The European Union called for an independent probe into what happened.
Israel’s army called it “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack that began the war in Gaza and triggered regular exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border.
Israel blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket but the Iran-backed group — which has regularly targeted Israeli military positions — said it had “no connection” to the incident.
It said, however, that it had fired one such rocket on Saturday toward an Israeli military target in the Golan.
The rocket fire in Majdal Shams, whose population are Arabic-speaking Druze, prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States. Upon arrival he went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, his office said.
He said “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price” for the attack, “a price it has not paid before.”
The Israeli foreign ministry said Hezbollah had “crossed all red lines.”
Tearful farewell
Israel’s military said later on Sunday it had hit Hezbollah targets “both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon.”
An Israeli drone fired two missiles at Taraiyya village in eastern Lebanon destroying a hanger and a home without causing casualties, a Lebanese security source told AFP.
Hezbollah has said its cross-border fire is an act of support for Palestinian Islamists from Hamas who have been fighting Israel’s military in Gaza since October 7 when they attacked southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
The rocket strike on Majdal Shams hit a football pitch and killed young people who local authorities said were aged 10 to 16. Israeli police said an 11-year-old boy was still missing. Thousands of residents, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam, crowded the town’s streets in a tearful funeral ceremony for many of the dead.
‘Bloodbath’
Early on Sunday, Gallant visited the scene, where a building was pockmarked by shrapnel.
According to Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, the position Hezbollah said it targeted is about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the town, putting it “within margin of error” of the inaccurate rockets.
But he said “the possibility of a misfire” from an Israeli air defense missile could not be ruled out and there should be an independent investigation into what happened.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said there was “every indication” Hezbollah was behind the rocket strike.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the “bloodbath” and also said there should be “an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident.”
The United Nations urged “maximum restraint”, in a joint statement from their special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) chief Aroldo Lazaro.
Intensifying exchanges of fire “could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief,” they said.
The United States National Security Council condemned the attack, as did Germany, whose foreign ministry urged “cool heads.”
The rocket fire on Majdal Shams came after an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon, prompting the militant group to announce a flurry of retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan and northern Israel.
Lebanon’s government called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.”
Gaza ceasefire effort
But inflammatory comments escalated once again.
“Any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region,” said Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the incident in Majdal Shams a “massacre” and accused Hezbollah of deliberately targeting civilians.
Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
Syria denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for “pretexts to enlarge its aggression.”
The violence since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead have been fighters but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.
According to Israel’s army, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed so far in northern Israel.
In a speech to the United States Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel will do “whatever it must” to secure its northern border.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said that if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza his movement would stop cross-border attacks.
Blinken said the best way to prevent the Gaza conflict from escalating “is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we’re working so hard on.”
Months of effort by the US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators have failed to secure a deal, but Egyptian state-linked media said talks were to take place Sunday in Rome.