Deadly raid on Golan | Israel vows to respond “with force”

(Majdal Shams) Israel vowed Sunday to “strike the enemy with force” the day after a shooting that killed 12 young people on the annexed Syrian Golan Heights, blamed on Lebanese Hezbollah, raising fears of a regional conflagration in the midst of war in the Gaza Strip.

Iran has warned Israel of the “consequences” of a retaliatory attack in Lebanon. “Any action […] “may lead to the worsening of the war in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.

According to Israel, a rocket attack from Lebanon on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams killed 12 boys and girls, aged 10 to 16, and injured about 30 others on Saturday. An 11-year-old boy, initially reported missing, was later revealed to be the 12^e victim, police said Sunday evening, according to Israeli media.

The White House blamed the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement for the “horrific” attack. “It was their rocket, launched from an area they control,” a National Security Council spokeswoman said.

The strike was carried out with an Iranian Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead, according to Israel. Hezbollah, which denies carrying out the attack, is the only one to have one, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, accusing the Lebanese movement of having “crossed all red lines” by firing “on civilians.”

Hezbollah will pay “a high price,” warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned from the United States on Sunday. In the evening, the security cabinet authorized him and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to “decide how and when to respond to the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” without giving further details, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s office.

“Act with cool blood”

The shooting came after the announcement of the death of four Hezbollah fighters in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. On Saturday evening, the Lebanese movement said it had launched rockets targeting military positions in the Golan, including a Falaq, before denying being behind the shooting on Majdal Shams.

This small Druze town is located on the Golan Heights, a strategic region at the crossroads of three countries (Syria, Lebanon, Israel), largely conquered by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel annexed two-thirds of it in 1981, but the international community has never recognized this annexation.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited the soccer field in Majdal Shams on Sunday, where he “insisted” that Israel would “strike the enemy with force,” according to his ministry.

Thousands of people gathered in the city for the victims’ funerals, during which women in black mourning dresses and white veils crowded around the coffins.

It was “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7,” the date of the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, according to Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the army.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and called on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint”. The European Union called for an “independent international investigation”, Berlin called for “acting with cool blood” and London said it feared an “escalation”.

French President Emmanuel Macron assured Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that France was “fully committed to doing everything to avoid a new escalation in the region” during a telephone conversation.

Lebanon has called for an “international investigation,” warning that an Israeli attack on its territory could spark a regional conflagration. Egypt, one of the mediating countries in the Gaza war with Qatar and the United States, has warned of “the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon.”

Syria has denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah.

“It could have been a missed shot or an Israeli defense missile intended to intercept an air target,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Near East and Gulf Institute for Military Analysis (INEGMA).

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has been exchanging fire daily with the Israeli army on both sides of the border.

On Sunday, the movement evacuated positions in Lebanon after threats from Israel, according to a source close to Hezbollah.

New evacuations

The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who died, according to the army.

The Israeli response offensive has left 39,324 dead, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.

On Sunday, the Civil Defense said that an Israeli strike hit tents in the Al-Mawasi displacement camp near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least five people.

The army announced that it had called on residents of al-Bureij and al-Shuhada, in the centre of the besieged territory, to evacuate, saying it would intervene “with force”.

The head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X that “only 14% of the areas of Gaza are not currently subject to evacuation orders”, accusing Israel of causing “havoc and panic”.

After the failure of multiple negotiations on a truce associated with the release of hostages, a meeting of representatives of the mediating countries with the head of Israeli intelligence was to take place on Sunday in Rome.