Israel vows retaliation after rocket kills 12 youths in Golan Heights

 

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant vowed Sunday to “strike the enemy hard” after rocket fire from Lebanon killed 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and raised fears that the war in Gaza will spread.

Iran has warned Israel that any new military “adventure” in Lebanon could lead to “unintended consequences.”

Western powers, including France and Germany, condemned the attack and called for calm.

The European Union has called for an independent investigation into what happened.

The Israeli military called it “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the Oct. 7 attack that started the war in Gaza and triggered regular exchanges of fire along the Lebanese border.

Israel has blamed the Lebanese movement Hezbollah for the launch of the Iranian Falaq-1 rocket, but the Iran-backed group, which has regularly targeted Israeli military positions, said it had “no connection” to the incident.

It did, however, claim to have launched one of these rockets on Saturday at an Israeli military target in the Golan Heights.

The rocket fire at Majdal Shams, whose population is made up of Arabic-speaking Druze, prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States. Upon arrival, he immediately went to a security cabinet meeting, his office said.

He said that “Hezbollah will pay a high price” for the attack, “a price it has never paid before.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Hezbollah had “crossed all red lines.”

Goodbye in tears

Later on Sunday, the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah targets “both deep inside Lebanon and in southern Lebanon.”

An Israeli drone fired two missiles at the eastern Lebanese village of Taraiyya, destroying a hangar and a house without causing any casualties, a Lebanese security source told AFP.

Hezbollah said its cross-border attack was an act of support for Palestinian Islamists Hamas who have been fighting the Israeli army in Gaza since October 7, when they attacked southern Israel.

According to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data, that attack killed 1,197 people in Israel, mostly civilians.

The militants also took 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who, according to the army, have died.

According to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry, Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,324 people, but it provides no details on civilian and militant deaths.

The rocket attack on Majdal Shams hit a soccer field and killed youths who local authorities said were between the ages of 10 and 16. Israeli police said an 11-year-old boy was still missing. Thousands of residents, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, crowded the city’s streets in a tearful funeral ceremony for many of the dead.

‘Bloodbath’

Early Sunday morning, Gallant went to the scene, where a building had been hit by shrapnel.

According to Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, the location Hezbollah said it targeted is about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the city, putting it “within a margin of error” from inaccurate rockets.

But he said he could not rule out “the possibility of a misfire” by an Israeli air defense missile and that an independent investigation should be launched into what happened.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that there was “every indication” that Hezbollah was behind the missile attack.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, condemned the “bloodbath” and also said that “an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident” should be launched.

The United Nations urged “maximum restraint,” in a joint statement by its special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Aroldo Lazaro.

The intensified exchange of fire “could trigger a larger fire that would engulf the entire region in an incredible catastrophe,” they said.

The US National Security Council condemned the attack, as did Germany, whose Foreign Ministry called for “remain calm”.

The rocket fire on Majdal Shams came after an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, prompting the militant group to announce a barrage of retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan Heights and northern Israel.

The Lebanese government has called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.”

Ceasefire effort in Gaza

But the provocative comments have increased again.

“Any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the expansion of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the Majdal Shams incident a “massacre” and accused Hezbollah of deliberately targeting civilians.

Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

Syria denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah and said Israel was seeking “pretexts to expand its aggression.”

Violence has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon since October, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead were combatants, but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.

According to the Israeli military, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed so far in northern Israel.

In a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel will do “whatever it takes” to secure its northern border.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, his movement will end cross-border attacks.

Blinken said the best way to prevent the conflict in Gaza from escalating “is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we’ve been working so hard to get.”

Despite months of efforts by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators failing to reach an agreement, state-backed Egyptian media said talks would take place in Rome on Sunday.

[AFP]

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