Majdal Shams, Golan Heights/Jerusalem:

Israel convened its security cabinet on Sunday to discuss responding to a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 teenagers and children, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Palestinian group Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza. That conflict has spread to several fronts and risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.

Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon during the day but a stronger response could follow the security meeting in Tel Aviv convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his return from a visit to Washington.

Israel has vowed retaliation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The White House on Sunday also blamed Hezbollah for the Majdal Shams strike. “This attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah. It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control,” it said in a statement.

The U.S. said Washington has been in discussions with Israeli and Lebanese counterparts since Saturday’s attack, which it condemned and described as “horrific,” and that it was working on a diplomatic solution.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington stood by Israel’s right to defend itself, but that it did not want further escalation of the conflict, which has seen daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along the border.

Britain expressed concern at further escalation while Egypt said the attack could spill “into a comprehensive regional war.”

On the ground, thousands of people 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.

Members of the Druze faith, which is related to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, make up more than half the 40,000-strong population of the Golan Heights. Large crowds of mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the village.

“A heavy tragedy, a dark day has come to Majdal Shams,” said Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the Majdal Shams local council, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.

Hezbollah initially had announced it fired rockets at Israeli military sites in the Golan Heights, but said it had “absolutely nothing” to do with the attack on Majdal Shams.

ISRAEL SAYS ROCKET IRANIAN-MADE

However, Israel said the rocket was an Iranian-made missile fired from an area north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon, placing the blame squarely on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

It was not immediately clear if the children and teenagers killed in the strike were Israeli citizens, but Israeli officials have vowed retaliation.

“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,” Israel’s foreign ministry said.

Two security sources told Reuters Hezbollah was on high alert and had cleared out some key sites in both Lebanon’s south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in case of an Israeli attack.

Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines said it was delaying the arrival of some flights from Sunday night to Monday morning, without stating why.

In the southern port city of Tyre, a little over 20 km (12 miles) from the border, beachgoers were still streaming to the coast. “There’s fear that Israel will react, but people are living their life normally,” said Ali Husseini, manager of a beachside business in Tyr.

Israeli forces have been exchanging fire for months with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon but both sides have appeared to be avoiding an escalation that could lead to all-out war, potentially dragging in other powers including the United States and Iran.

However, Saturday’s strike threatened to tip the standoff into a more dangerous phase. United Nations officials urged maximum restraint from both sides, warning that escalation could “engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief.”

Lebanon has asked the U.S to urge restraint from Israel, Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters. Bou Habib said the U.S. had asked Lebanon’s government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.

ALL-OUT WAR FEARED

Iran’s foreign ministry warned Israel on Sunday against what it called any new adventure in Lebanon.

Syria’s foreign ministry said it held Israel “fully responsible for this dangerous escalation in the region” and said its accusations against Hezbollah were false.

Two diplomats 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 count among civilians killed in Hezbollah attacks had risen to 23 since October, along with at least 17 soldiers.

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East and opened a second front against Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault.

Iraqi groups and the Houthis of Yemen have both fired at Israel, which earlier this month attacked the Red Sea port of Hodeidah in retaliation for a strike on Tel Aviv that killed one person. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, the Jama’a Islamiya.

Druze communities live on both sides of the line between southern Lebanon and northern Israel as well as in the Golan Heights and Syria. While some serve in the Israeli military and identify with Israel, many feel marginalized in Israel and some also reject Israeli citizenship.

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Beirut, Lebanon:

An Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed four fighters of Iran-backed operative group Hezbollah on Saturday, a security source told AFP.

“Four Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on the village of Kfar Kila,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Hezbollah, which has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted last October, confirmed the deaths of four of its fighters.

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Beirut, Lebanon:

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Saturday it had targeted northern Israel with drones and guided missiles after cross-border Israeli strikes killed three people, including two of its members.

A statement from the group said it “launched a complex attack using explosive drones and guided missiles on the headquarters of the Al Manara military command and a gathering of forces from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade”.

The Israeli army said its Iron Dome air-defence system “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into the area of Manara in northern Israel”.

The army also “struck the sources of fire” of several anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon into the Manara border area, it added.

Lebanon’s National News Agency later reported that an Israeli air strike on a house in Srebbine village had wounded 11 people, one seriously.

Earlier Saturday, Israeli fighter jets “struck a Hezbollah military structure in the area of Qouzah in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement.

The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago.

In two separate statements earlier Saturday, Hezbollah mourned the deaths of two fighters from the villages of Kafr Kila and Khiam.

It said they had been “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire.

Hezbollah has intensified its targeting of military sites in Israel since tensions soared between Israel and Iran over the bombing of Tehran’s Damascus consulate on April 1, widely blamed on Israel.

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Beirut:

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched a drone and missile attack on an Israeli base on Wednesday in response to strikes that killed three Hezbollah fighters the day before.

Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian group attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

But Wednesday’s incident marked the third day in a row that Hezbollah strikes wounded people in Israel, with regional tensions high after Iran launched a direct attack on Israel over the weekend in retaliation for a deadly strike on Tehran’s Damascus consulate.

Hezbollah said it launched “a combined attack with guided missiles and explosive drones on a new military reconnaissance command centre in Arab al-Aramshe,” an Arab-majority village of northern Israel.

The attack came “in response to the enemy assassinating a number of resistance fighters in Ain Baal and Shehabiya” on Tuesday, the movement said.

Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, said six people had been injured after a strike in Western Galilee.

The six injured are “men in their 30s, including: 1 in serious condition,” the rescuers said on X, formerly Twitter.

The Israeli army said “a number of launches from Lebanon were identified crossing into the area of Arab al-Aramshe,” adding that it struck the sources of the fire.

On Tuesday, Israel said its strikes in south Lebanon killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative, with the Iran-backed group saying three of its members were killed as it launched rockets in retaliation.

Local Israeli authorities said three people were wounded in a strike from Lebanon earlier that day.

On Monday, Hezbollah targeted Israeli troops with explosive devices, wounding four soldiers who crossed into Lebanese territory, the first such attack in six months of clashes.

The violence has killed at least 368 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

In Israel, the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed near the northern border since hostilities began.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes on both sides of the border, with the violence fuelling fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

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Beirut, Lebanon:

An Israeli army air strike in Lebanon killed the deputy head of Hezbollah’s rocket unit on Friday, the army said, the latest deadly cross-border violence since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.

The strike in south Lebanon’s Bazuriyeh killed Ali Abdel Hassan Naim, “one of the leaders for heavy-warhead rocket fire and responsible for conducting and planning attacks against Israeli civilian,” the Israeli military said.
 

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