CNN
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Multiple rockets hit a village in the Golan Heights on Saturday, killing at least 12 people, including children, in what Israel said was its deadliest attack since October 7.
Israel said it had seen “approximately 30 projectiles” fired into Israeli territory from Lebanon and blamed the attack on the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The incident has raised fears of an escalation in the long-running conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, with some Israeli politicians calling for retaliation despite Hezbollah’s “categorically denial” that it fired rockets.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging increasingly fierce artillery fire across the border for nearly 10 months, and even before Saturday’s attack regional leaders had warned that the conflict was reaching a boiling point.
The attack left 12 people dead and at least 29 injured in the Israeli-controlled village of Majdal Shams in the northern Golan Heights, which has a large Druze community.
Approximately 20,000 Arab Druze people live on the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981. The area, considered occupied territory under international law and UN Security Council resolutions, is also home to approximately 50,000 Israeli Jewish settlers and Druze. Most of the Druze who live there identify as Syrian and have rejected the offer of Israeli citizenship.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari said some of the affected areas included a soccer field where children and young people were playing, describing the attack as “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7.”
“This is a very serious incident and we will act accordingly,” he said.
Haghari said the rocket that struck the football field was an “Iranian Falak-1 rocket with a 50-kilogram warhead.” “This is a model owned exclusively by Hezbollah and it caused the deaths of 12 boys and girls tonight,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short a visit to the United States by a few hours and returned to Israel in the wake of the attack, and announced he would convene a meeting of his security cabinet immediately upon his return.
The prime minister said he was “shocked” by the attack. “The State of Israel will not be silent on this matter. We will not take this issue off the agenda,” he said.
Earlier, in a separate statement, Netanyahu’s office said he “made it clear” that “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for the attacks, which it has not paid so far.”
Jara Marais/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli security forces and local residents gather at the site of a rocket attack in the Golan Heights area on July 27, 2024.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the attack as a “horrific and shocking disaster” and vowed that Israel would “protect” its people.
“Hezbollah terrorists brutally attacked and killed children today for simply going out to play football. They have never come back,” he said in a post on X.
“The world cannot remain silent as Nasrallah’s terrorist attacks are carried out at the behest of the evil Iranian empire. The State of Israel will resolutely defend its people and sovereignty.”
Saturday’s attack marked a major escalation after months of extreme insecurity in the border region.
Officially, Lebanon and Israel have been at war for decades, but recent tensions have so far not escalated into a full-blown conflict.
Attacks have become more frequent in recent weeks, with Hezbollah and Israel targeting sites deep inside each other’s territory.
Tensions have risen further in the past few weeks after Israel killed two senior Hezbollah officials — Sami Taleb Abdullah in May and Mohammed Neama Nasser in June — and accused them of orchestrating terror attacks before and after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Gaza. Hezbollah retaliated by firing hundreds of missiles at Israel.
It was unclear how Israel would respond to Saturday’s deadly attack. A government spokesman said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was assessing the situation together with the IDF chief of staff and senior defense officials.
Gallant said late Saturday that Israel would strike back “harshly” against its enemies.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told CNN that Lebanon and Hezbollah “have started a war with Israel.”
“The state of Lebanon, to which Hezbollah belongs, started a war with Israel. We no longer distinguish between Lebanon and Hezbollah, which is part of Lebanon,” Naftali said in an interview with CNN’s Jessica Dean on Saturday. “Hezbollah is the same as Lebanon, and there should be no distinction between the two.”
Naftali said Israel must fight back. “Enough is enough,” he said. “The only way to stop our enemies from Yemen, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon from attacking us day and night is to fight back and attack them. There is no other way.”
“We can’t make any more speeches. It’s time for action,” he added, addressing Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu will hold security talks with Military Secretary General Roman Govman and hold a security situation assessment with all Defense Ministry chiefs later on Saturday, the prime minister’s office said.
Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz visited Majdal Shams on Saturday and called on Netanyahu to strengthen the IDF’s presence in the area.
Following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and the subsequent Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, some IDF units previously stationed along the country’s northern border have been redeployed to southern Israel.
“We have a moral obligation in the south to bring the hostages home and we also have a strategic obligation to ensure security in the north and bring people back to their homes. This situation has been dragging on. I have told the prime minister that as we work to bring the hostages back to the south, we must also direct resources to the north. That is our primary mission.”
The Lebanese government said after the attack that it condemned “all acts of violence and attacks against all civilians,” Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported.
The government also called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts” and said “the targeting of civilians is a clear violation of international law and contrary to the principles of humanity,” NNA reported.
Jara Marais/AFP/Getty Images
People at the site of a rocket attack in the village of Majdal Shams on July 27, 2024.
Adib Safadi, a resident of Majdal Shams, told CNN that all those killed in the rocket attack on the football field were Druze children from local villages, boys between the ages of eight and 15.
“They were attending their coach’s football training but we still don’t know where his whereabouts are. We have identified the 10 killed but there are more whose bodies have been torn apart and we have not yet identified them,” said Safadi, who lives about 600 metres from the scene of the attack.
He said he saw black smoke and heard an explosion, and about four seconds after the explosion, he heard sirens warning people of the impending attack.
An evacuation helicopter, ambulance and intensive care vehicle were dispatched to the scene.
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service reported that the dead included “teenagers and young people” aged between 10 and 20. It said a further 29 people were injured, six of them seriously.
MDA senior doctor Idan Avshalom said his team witnessed destruction and fire when they arrived at the scene.
“The injured were lying on the grass and the situation was dire. We immediately started triaging the injured and some of them were sent to local clinics and our team also headed to the clinic,” he said, adding that there were additional alerts while they operated to rescue the injured.
The Zif Medical Center in the northern Israeli city of Safed said it had received 26 injured people, five of whom were admitted to its trauma center. The Rambam Hospital in Haifa also opened an information center to help people get information about their loved ones.
Israeli police said the munitions fell in “several locations in the northern Golan Heights.”
Police are “securing the scene and searching for further debris to eliminate any further risk to residents,” the police spokesman’s office said.
The Israel Defense Forces blamed Hezbollah for the attack, but the militant group denied any involvement in a statement on Telegram on Saturday.
“The Lebanese Islamic Resistance categorically denies the claims made by some opposition media and various media outlets that it targeted Majdal Shams,” the statement said.
“We can confirm that the Islamic Resistance Movement has no connection to this incident and categorically deny the false allegations in this matter,” the statement continued.
Earlier on the same day, Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli military facility in another part of the occupied Golan Heights.
But the IDF said analysis showed that the rockets fired at Majdal Shams “came from an area located north of the village of Sheba in southern Lebanon.”
IDF spokesman Hagari said denials that Hezbollah was behind the attack were false. “Our intelligence is clear: Hezbollah is responsible for the murder of innocent children. The murder of 10-year-olds once again exposes Hezbollah’s brutality as a terrorist organization,” he said.
The White House on Saturday condemned the attack and reiterated its “unwavering” support for Israel.
“As the world saw today, Israel continues to face serious security threats, and the United States will continue to support efforts to end these horrific attacks along its Blue Line, which is its top priority,” a National Security Council spokesman said in a written statement to CNN, referring to the border between Israel and Lebanon.
“Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called for an independent international investigation into the attack and urged restraint.
“Shocking images from the football field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams. I strongly condemn this bloodshed. We call on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and avoid further escalation,” he said in a statement posted on X.
