Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah exchanged fire on Tuesday, after a deadly strike on the Golan Heights raised fears of a flare-up in the region on the fringes of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his country would provide a “severe response” to the attack that killed 12 children and teenagers on Saturday in the part of the Syrian Golan Heights annexed by Israel.
This rocket attack on a football field in the small Druze town of Majdal Shams was attributed by Israel, as well as by the United States, to the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, which denied it.
The attack has revived fears that the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, will spread to Lebanon and lead to a wider conflict in the region.
An Israeli civilian was killed Tuesday by a rocket landing in northern Israel, rescue workers said, and the army said it responded to a barrage of rockets by firing toward Lebanon.
The army had earlier announced that it had struck “around ten Hezbollah terrorist targets” in “seven different areas” of southern Lebanon, and killed a member of the armed movement.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered on October 7 by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil, exchanges of fire have been almost daily on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, an all-powerful movement in Lebanon, supported by Iran.
“Forbidden” revenge
“These children are our children […] “The State of Israel will not, and cannot, let this go. Our response will come, and it will be severe,” Netanyahu said on Monday, visiting Majdal Shams.
Druze leaders in the city said after the visit that they rejected the idea of a response, based on the doctrine of their community, whose religion is derived from Islam.
“The tragedy is immense,” they stressed. But because of the Druze doctrine that “forbids murder and revenge in any form, we reject shedding even a drop of blood under the pretext of avenging our children,” they added.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday it was “deeply concerned by the growing threat of generalised conflict throughout the region” and “urged all parties and the international community to work urgently to de-escalate tensions”.
Several airlines, including Air France and Lufthansa, have suspended flights to Beirut since Monday.
The CEO of Middle East Airlines, the Lebanese national airline, Mohammad al-Hout, however assured that the airport “had not received any threats.”
In Beirut, residents interviewed by AFP were worried about this fever outbreak, while others seemed resigned.
“I live in constant worry. I think about how I could make my children flee if war breaks out. This situation of waiting and instability is tiring,” said Cosette Béchara, a 40-year-old employee and mother of two.
But for Valentine Fadlallah, a 37-year-old psychologist met at the edge of a swimming pool, “life goes on, we live from day to day.” “We’ve already experienced this with all these wars,” the young woman stressed.
The international community is stepping up efforts to prevent an escalation. A French diplomat told AFP in Beirut that France, “alongside other partners, notably the United States, is making all-out efforts to call on the parties to exercise restraint.”
Khan Younes withdrawal
In the Gaza Strip, strikes and artillery fire were reported on Tuesday in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, on the al-Bureij camp in the center, and in Gaza City in the north.
The Civil Defense announced that the Israeli military operation launched on July 22 in the Khan Younis governorate had left around 300 dead.
The army said on Tuesday that it had completed the operation and killed “more than 150 terrorists.”
Tank fire targeted eastern Khan Younis early Tuesday, AFP correspondents said, citing witnesses. At least eight bodies were found in the area, rescuers and doctors said.
The war broke out on October 7, when Hamas commandos carried out an attack in southern Israel that killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom have died, according to the army.
In response, Israel has promised to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in the Palestinian territory since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organisation, as do the United States and the European Union.
His army has launched an offensive that has so far killed 39,400 people, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not give details on the number of civilians and fighters killed.