Israel vows to hit Hezbollah hard after rocket kills 12 on football field

Majdal Shams: Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

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 and now risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.

Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon overnight but a stronger response was expected following the return of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his U.S. visit and a meeting of the security cabinet expected at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT).

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.

Mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the crowds.

"We are in difficult moments, 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 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."

However Israel, which said the rocket launch was carried out from an area located north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon, has placed the blame squarely on the Iranian-backed group, saying Hezbollah was "unequivocally responsible" for the deaths of the children as they were playing football.

"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 in a statement.

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 an 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 and United Nations officials urged maximum restraint from both sides, warning that further escalation "could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief."

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.

AVOIDING ALL-OUT WAR

The Lebanese government 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.

Iran warned Israel on Sunday against what it called any new adventure in Lebanon, in a statement issued by foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani. However Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, visiting the site of the strike, said: "We will hit the enemy hard."

The United States, which has been leading diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border, condemned the strike 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.

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.

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, which earlier this month carried out a major strike against 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.

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 but many serve in the Israeli military and feel a strong attachment to Israel.

Courtesy: Reuters