CNN
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Israel has blamed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children and vowed that the group will “pay a price”, reviving fears that all-out war could engulf the region.
Hezbollah said it “categorically denies” that it was behind the attack, the deadliest to hit Israel and Israeli-controlled territory since the October 7 attacks.
Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes late Sunday night “deep inside Lebanese territory” and on Hezbollah positions along the border, the army said in a statement Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear whether the strikes caused any casualties.
And Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who visited the town of Majdal Shams near the Syrian-Lebanese border where Saturday’s rocket attack killed children and young people, promised a tough response.
“Hezbollah is responsible for this and will pay a price,” Gallant said in an earlier statement from his office, adding that “we will hit our enemies hard.”
Saturday’s attack on the area involved “around 30 projectiles” being fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory, and the Israeli military immediately blamed it on Iran-backed militant groups.
The blast killed 12 children and injured 44 others, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The children killed in the attack were playing on a soccer field, according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry list and residents who spoke to CNN. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken supported Israel’s assessment on Sunday, saying “all indications” suggest the attack was the result of rockets fired by Hezbollah.
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About 20,000 Druze Arabs live on the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981. About 25,000 Israeli Jewish settlers also live in the area, which is considered occupied territory under international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
Most of the Druze there identify as Syrian and have rejected the offer of Israeli citizenship, and the Majdal Shams local council said Sunday that none of the 12 children killed were Israeli nationals.
Hundreds of mourners lined the streets on Sunday for a funeral procession to honour the victims of the strike, with some dressed in black sang songs and others laying wreaths as a white coffin was carried to the funeral home.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid spoke at the funeral, saying: “The children who died on that soccer field could have been any of our children, so they are truly each and every one of our children. They are our children.”
But at the event, many residents denounced Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and gathered around him, demanding that he leave. He was eventually removed by security.
Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Druze elders and mourners surround the coffins of 10 children killed in Saturday’s attack.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire on a near-daily basis since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and the exchanges have become increasingly volatile, raising repeated fears that a war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip could escalate into a conflict on multiple fronts in the Middle East.
Hezbollah acknowledged Saturday’s attacks in the Golan Heights but denied responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams.
“We can confirm that the Islamic Resistance Movement has no connection to this incident and categorically reject the false allegations in this regard,” the statement said.
Experts who analyzed footage of the explosion and its aftermath told CNN that the blast and damage were consistent with the type of munitions fired from Lebanon and Syria into northern Israel and the Golan Heights.
Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, told CNN on Sunday that weapons fragments at the scene indicate the rocket was fired by Hezbollah or another militant group. Ball said that based on the available evidence, he ruled out the possibility that the explosion was caused by an Israeli interceptor missile, such as one fired from the Iron Dome air defense system.
A Western official familiar with the intelligence told CNN there’s no doubt the attack was carried out by Hezbollah but is not believed to have been intentional. Israel is expected to retaliate but has no intention of escalating into a larger conflict, the official said, adding that Hezbollah knows retaliation is coming and would expect a reasonable response of its own.
Hezbollah public relations director Mohammed Afif told CNN on Sunday that the militant group was in a “state of mobilization” and had vacated some of its military bases in response to increased threats from Israel, but he did not provide details on the locations or number of bases that had been vacated.
“Mobilization and readiness, as well as the vacating of some military posts here and there, are a normal part of war, especially following the increased Israeli threat since yesterday,” Afif said. Afif described the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, which began on October 8, as a “state of war.”
While Israel’s initial overnight response did not appear to warrant an attack that would spark all-out war, it marked an extremely tense day in the region.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani on Sunday warned Israel against “any new adventures” aimed at Lebanon. The statement said Israel “does not have the minimum moral authority to comment or judge the events that took place in the Majdal Shams area, nor can it heed the claims of this regime against other countries.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a US visit by a few hours to return to Israel and convene a security cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv to discuss the situation. The prime minister’s office said after the meeting that the cabinet had “authorized the prime minister and the defense minister to decide the nature and timing of any response against the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”
The prime minister earlier said he was “shocked” by the attack, adding: “The State of Israel will not be silent about this. We will not take this off the agenda.”
01:19 – Source: CNN
‘I don’t think we can do it’: Lebanon foreign minister on controlling Hezbollah
The Lebanese foreign minister warned that if Israel responded by invading Lebanon, the entire region risked being drawn into war.
“[A] “A war on Lebanon is a regional war,” interim Foreign Minister Abdalla Bou Habib told CNN’s senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman in Beirut on Sunday. “It’s not a battle between Hezbollah and Israel. You have the Houthis, you have Iraqi militias, you have non-Syrian militias in Syria, you have Pakistani militias, you have Afghan militias. They’re all going to be caught up in this.”
He said that if war broke out, Lebanon would not get involved and would support Hezbollah.
“If war breaks out, we will definitely support Hezbollah,” Bou Habib said. “Not because of any belief, but against any attack against our country, we will support Hezbollah in this regard.”
The 2006 Lebanon-Israel war devastated much of Lebanon, but Hezbollah thwarted Israeli plans to eventually destroy the group. During the 34-day war, Hezbollah is estimated to have fired around 4,000 rockets, an average of 117 per day.
Bou Habib stressed that a new war would be harmful not only to Lebanon but also to Israel.
“[Israel] “Lebanon will also go back to the Stone Age, but it will not be because of the Lebanese government,” he said, referring to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s comments in June 2023 that the Israeli military could “send Lebanon back to the Stone Age.”
But Bou Habib told Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed News TV channel that Lebanon had received assurances from third countries that Israel’s response would be “limited,” adding that Hezbollah would also limit its actions. Pressed by the presenter to identify which countries had given these assurances, he suggested that “the United States and France are very concerned about this issue.”
Lebanon has called for an international investigation into the attack to determine who is responsible.
Egypt’s foreign minister warned on Sunday of “the risk of opening a new front in Lebanon.” He called on “the major forces of the international community to intervene immediately” to prevent a protracted conflict.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “We call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and reiterate our consistent call on all involved to avoid further escalation.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines (MEA) said on Sunday it was postponing six return flights to Beirut until Monday.
The MEA in a statement did not give reasons for the delays but said flights were due to depart on Monday morning from London, Copenhagen, Doha, Dammam, Dubai and Jeddah.
The attack has led some residents of Majdal Shams to question whether the area’s early warning system was functioning properly.
A witness to the attack on the soccer field told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond that the rockets landed less than five seconds after sirens sounded.
Teymor Willi, a resident of Majdal Shams, said he was in his apartment overlooking the soccer field when the rocket struck, leaving children on the field with no time to react between the sound of the warning siren and the moment the rocket struck.
He said the evacuation centre was just metres away from the football field, and that people at the football field might have been able to reach it if they had had more time. Video from the evacuation centre showed it just metres from the crater left by the rocket impact.
In addition to eyewitness accounts, several videos from Majdal Shams show the sound of sirens seconds before the rockets hit.
In response to questions from CNN, the Israel Defense Forces said a preliminary investigation found that warning systems were working properly before the rockets struck. “The area should be evacuated immediately,” the Israel Defense Forces said.
He added that the IDF was “making every possible effort to provide the public with the necessary warning time as part of the life-saving efforts.”
The IDF said it “expresses its condolences to the family and will continue to work to deliver life-saving warnings.”
Correction: This article has been updated to correct the number of Israeli Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights.
