Hit "Hezbollah" Golan Heights: 11 Dead, Mostly Teens and Children. Counterattack (Video)

Israel says Hezbollah strikes Golan Heights, 11 dead include children. Israel retaliates on Lebanese cities.

A rocket fired from Lebanon hit a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday, reports Reuters, 11 people were killed. Israel's ambulance service said another 13 people were wounded in the Druze village of Majdal Shams, where a soccer match was taking place. Most of the victims were said to be children or teenagers. At the time attacks (caution, harsh footage) they were on a football field.

In the Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the radical Shiite movement Hezbollah was targeted in the attack and warned of a possible full-scale war. The strike, the publication notes, is the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of hostilities in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Axios:

“Today's Hezbollah attack crossed all red lines and will be responded to accordingly. We are approaching the moment of all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the incident a “terrible and shocking disaster.” He wrote on his social media account X:

“Today, Hezbollah terrorists brutally attacked and killed children whose only crime was going to play football.”

Netanyahu urgently flew from the US to Israel. He expressed condolences by phone to the spiritual leader of the Israeli Druze community, Sheikh Muafik Tarif in connection with the shelling of a Druze settlement.

Hezbollah said in a written statement that “the Islamic resistance has absolutely nothing to do with this incident and categorically denies all false accusations regarding it.” In comments to the AP, Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif said the group “categorically denies carrying out an attack on Majdal Shams” and insisted that its strike was aimed only at an Israeli military base. However, Israel has already struck back at Lebanese cities:

The Israeli military noted that the air force struck a number of Hezbollah targets both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon. IDF reportedthat the targets attacked included weapons caches and terrorist infrastructure facilities in the areas of Chabrikha, Borj al-Chmali, as well as Bekaa, Kfarkelah, Rab al-Talatin, Khiam and Tayr Harfa.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire in areas on or near the Lebanese-Israeli border since the start of the war in Gaza, raising fears of a full-scale conflict between the heavily armed adversaries.

Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East that have been fighting in support of their Palestinian ally Hamas since October. Iranian-backed Iraqi groups and Yemeni Houthis have fired rockets into Israel. Hamas has also fired rockets into Israel from Lebanon since October, as has the Lebanese Sunni militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.

The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the territory in a Middle East war, annexing it in 1981. The unilateral annexation was not recognized by most countries, and Syria demands the territory's return. More than 40,000 people live in the Golan Heights, more than half of whom are Druze, an Arab minority that practices an offshoot of Islam.

The attack on the football pitch came after an Israeli strike in Lebanon on Saturday killed four militants. Two Lebanese security sources said they were members of different armed groups, at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.

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