Global leaders engaged in intensive diplomacy on Sunday to prevent Israel from escalating attacks on Lebanon, amid fears a wider regional war could erupt in response to a rocket attack that killed 12 children playing soccer in the occupied Golan Heights.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his national security cabinet, the White House backed Israel’s statement blaming Saturday’s attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“It was their rocket, and it was launched from an area they control. This should be universally condemned.”
However, the US is also “working on a diplomatic solution … that will end all attacks once and for all,” the White House national security council statement added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Tokyo, stressed: “We also don’t want to see this conflict escalate. We don’t want to see it spread,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke to Netanyahu, telling him France remains committed to doing “everything to avoid a new escalation in the region by conveying a message to all parties involved in the conflict,” according to a statement from the Élysée Palace.
Also read: Israel Furious with the Attack on the Golan Heights
The UN special coordinator for Lebanon, as well as UN peacekeepers stationed along the line separating Israel from Lebanon, urged “maximum restraint”.
Both sides, they said, should “cease the increasingly intense exchange of fire.” “This could trigger a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in an unbelievable disaster,” they added.
The diplomacy comes amid growing anger in Israel over an attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed from Syria in 1981.
Read also: Hezbollah Threatens to Expand Attack Targets if Israel Continues to Attack Lebanon
On Sunday, thousands of people attended a funeral procession for 12 children, aged between 10 and 16, who were killed in the attack on the city’s soccer field. “Don’t involve our children in this war,” one woman sobbed in the procession.
Vowing revenge and promising that Hezbollah would “pay a heavy price,” Netanyahu returned early from his visit to the US, heading straight to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters in Tel Aviv. Israeli jets launched airstrikes in southern Lebanon overnight.
Later on Sunday afternoon, Netanyahu held a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with the defense ministry’s director general and the heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military intelligence service, to consider Israel’s response.
Also read: UNICEF Condemns Air Strike Killing Children in Lebanon
After the meeting, Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had authorized the prime minister and defense minister to determine the “type” and “timing” of Israel’s response to Hezbollah attacks.
The possibility of a larger Israeli attack on Lebanon, beyond the airstrikes in the country’s south that have raised concerns among its allies for months, has raised fears of a wider regional war beyond Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Israeli officials and military chiefs said Hezbollah was responsible for the rocket attack. The IDF published images of fragments it said showed the use of Iranian-made Falaq-1 rockets.
Hezbollah denied responsibility, though it said it was behind a rocket attack intended for Israeli military targets in the occupied Golan Heights earlier in the day. Instead, the Iran-backed organization said projectiles falling from Israel’s Iron Dome rocket system were responsible.
US envoy Amos Hochstein, who led the negotiations, spoke with Lebanese Prime Minister Nagib Mikati, council chairman Nabih Berry and influential Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in an effort to calm tensions after the attack.
The talks follow heated remarks from Israeli politicians, including right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said “all of Lebanon must pay a price” for the attack.
The tensions come as mediators, including CIA chief William Burns, Mossad’s David Barnea, and Qatari and Egyptian officials, meet in Rome in hopes of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the return of Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has previously said the group would halt its attacks on Israel’s northern border if a deal was reached to halt fighting in Gaza, which has killed more than 39,000 people since Israel began its offensive last October.
In a statement after Barnea returned from talks, the Israeli government said the mediators discussed new demands put forward by their side, which reportedly included denying the return of militants to northern Gaza and a long-term presence on the territory’s southern border with Egypt. The talks, which have been ongoing for months, are expected to continue.
Hezbollah, along with other militias in southern Lebanon, has stepped up attacks targeting Israeli military installations in recent months, in retaliation for Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
In response, Israel has carried out air strikes deep inside Lebanon, while Israeli jets frequently breach the sound barrier over the capital, Beirut. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by cross-border shelling on both sides. (The Guardian/Z-3)
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