(Majdal Shams) The Israeli army said that a rocket fired by Hebzollah from Lebanon killed 12 young people in the Golan Heights annexed by Israel, an attack for which the Lebanese Islamist movement will pay “a high price”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
In the war-torn Gaza Strip, an Israeli strike on a school also left 30 dead on Saturday, according to Hamas.
Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement, denied being behind the rocket attack on the Golan Heights, against the town of Majdal Shams.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel would “not let this deadly attack go unanswered” and that the Islamist movement “would pay a high price, a price it has never paid before”, according to a statement from his office.
He later announced that he would attend a meeting of his security cabinet upon his return from a trip to the United States.
According to a new report provided by Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli army, the attack on Majdal Shams “caused the death of 12 young boys and girls.” Eighteen other young people were injured, according to emergency services.
PHOTO GIL ELIYAHU, REUTERS
The army blamed the deadly shooting on Hezbollah.
The UN urged “the parties to exercise maximum restraint,” in a joint statement by the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Aroldo Lazaro.
An escalation of the firefight “could trigger a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in an unimaginable catastrophe,” they added.
The White House responded by reaffirming the United States’ “unwavering support” for Israel and assuring “support for efforts to end these terrible attacks.” EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell condemned “this bloodbath” and called for an “independent international investigation.”
A Lebanese security source told AFP that an Israeli drone had targeted with two missiles on the night of Saturday to Sunday a hangar and a house in Taraiyya, in eastern Lebanon, about fifteen kilometers from Baalbeck, completely destroying them. This source did not report any casualties.
Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on October 8 on their common border and exchanges fire with the Israeli army on a daily basis.
The rocket attack came after a Lebanese security source said four fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah had been killed by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
School targeted in Gaza
Despite international calls for calm in the region and a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory, the war continues unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In its center, “the Khadija school, which housed a makeshift medical unit in the Deir al-Balah area, was targeted [par une frappe qui a] “The attack left 30 martyrs and more than 100 injured,” Hamas’ health ministry said in a statement.
“I was shocked by the scene,” Moustafa al-Rifati told AFP: “People were flying, their heads, legs and hands were flying.”
This is at least the eighth time a school has been hit since July 6. According to the Gaza Civil Defense, the facility was sheltering around 4,000 displaced people.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians survey extent of damage caused by Israeli strike on school in Deir al-Balah
The Israeli army said it had targeted “terrorists” who were operating from the school.
Josep Borrell condemned the strike and the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated his call “for an immediate ceasefire and the protection of civilians.”
Moved for the “fifth time”
The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, which 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.
The Israeli response offensive has left at least 39,258 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.
In recent months, the Israeli army has returned to several areas of Palestinian territory from which it had claimed to have driven Hamas out, such as Khan Younis.
It expanded its operations in the southern Gaza Strip city on Monday after rockets were fired from the area toward Israel.
Around 170 people were killed and hundreds injured in six days, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP on Saturday.
In this context, the army has called on residents of several neighborhoods in the city to evacuate to al-Mawasi, further west, an area designated a “humanitarian zone.” But Palestinians are afraid to go there, as the area has already been targeted by Israeli bombings.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
An injured child is taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis
According to the UN, more than 180,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Younis since Monday. “This is the fifth time I have been displaced,” one of them told AFP.
Four people were also killed on Saturday and several injured in Rafah (south) by an air strike, doctors told AFP.
The Israeli army said it had “eliminated armed terrorist cells” in several areas.
The health and humanitarian situation is dire for Gaza’s estimated 2.4 million inhabitants.
After the failure of multiple negotiations on a truce associated with the release of hostages, a meeting of representatives of the mediators – Egypt, the United States, Qatar – with the head of Israeli intelligence is planned for Sunday in Rome, according to Al-Qahera News, a media outlet close to Egyptian intelligence.
Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, accuses Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sworn to destroy it, of blocking any agreement.
On Saturday evening in Tel Aviv, a new demonstration was held for the release of the hostages and against the Israeli government.