These include weapons depots belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, which Israel blames for the attack on the football pitch.
Victims between 10 and 20 years old
According to the Israeli military, the projectile that hit the Golan Heights was an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket. It was fired from a location near the village of Cheebaa in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Hezbollah militia had previously said it had attacked Israeli military facilities with Falaq-1 rockets. However, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on the football field.
Photo gallery: Children killed in rocket attack on Golan Heights
(Photo: JALAA MAREY (AFP)) Bild 1/10
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Military spokesman Daniel Hagari spoke on Saturday of the shelling as the “deadliest attack against Israeli civilians since October 7”. According to Israeli sources, several places on the Golan Heights were hit by rockets fired from Lebanon on Saturday. According to the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom, at least twelve people were killed in a direct hit on the Druze town of Majdal Shams. Another 19 people were injured. The deadly rocket hit a soccer field. All of the victims are reportedly between 10 and 20 years old.
Hagari said: “It is about the Druze community, about Israeli citizens (…) We will defend the citizens of Israel and the Druze community,” Hagari continued.
Hezbollah denies
The Israeli army said the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon was behind the rocket attack. Hezbollah, however, denied this. “The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” Hezbollah said, referring to its military wing.
The Lebanese government condemned on Saturday “all acts of violence and aggression against civilians.” “Attacking civilians is a blatant violation of international law and contradicts the principles of humanity,” it said.
Since the beginning of the war between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which was triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented major attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Hamas-allied Hezbollah from Lebanon has been firing rockets into northern Israel almost daily.
The Israeli army said that helicopters, ambulances and mobile intensive care units were deployed at the site in Majdal Shams. As an AFP correspondent observed, medics were carrying injured people on stretchers from the site where the rocket in question had hit for treatment.
Netanyahu on return journey from USA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now wants to return to Israel from the USA as soon as possible. “Immediately after the disaster became known, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave instructions to accelerate the return to Israel as quickly as possible,” his office wrote on X. Netanyahu had his military advisor in the USA brief him on the situation in the attacked village of Majdal Shams. After his return, the head of government will convene the security cabinet, his office said. Hezbollah will pay dearly for the attack, Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz even threatened Lebanon with war. “We are approaching the moment of a full-scale war against Hezbollah and Lebanon,” Katz told the news portal Axios. “Today’s attack by Hezbollah crossed all red lines, and the response will be accordingly.”
Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog accused the Hezbollah militia of “brutally attacking and murdering” children. “Hezbollah terrorists today brutally attacked and murdered children whose only crime was to go out to play football. They have not returned,” Herzog said.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right National Religious Party called for retaliation across Lebanon and the death of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Following the deadly shelling, Lebanon’s caretaker government condemned “all acts of violence and attacks against civilians.” It called for an “immediate end to hostilities on all fronts,” the caretaker government said, according to the state news agency NNA. Attacks against civilians are a “blatant violation of international law.”
The UN observer mission UNIFIL, which has been monitoring the border area between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, also commented immediately. The UN mission is “in contact with the parties to reduce tensions,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told the German Press Agency.
“Hard attack” expected
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is preparing for a possible “hard attack” from Israel, Hezbollah sources told the German Press Agency. Lebanese media reported that the militia had evacuated around 100 of its posts in suburbs south of the capital Beirut in anticipation of a possible Israeli attack. Hezbollah is particularly active in these areas. Israel’s army could also attack here if it wanted to launch a particularly heavy and devastating counterattack.
Israel conquered large parts of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed them. This annexation is not internationally recognized. Syria is demanding the return of the area. More than 40,000 people live on the Golan Heights, more than half of whom are Druze. They are an Arab minority with a religion related to Islam.
