(Majdal Shams) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday to deliver a “severe response” to the attack that killed 12 youths in the annexed Golan, as efforts are being made to avoid an escalation between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
For months, the international community has been concerned about a regional conflagration linked to the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil on October 7.
The rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday was blamed by the Israeli government on Hezbollah, which denies it. This Lebanese movement, allied with Iran, opened a front against Israel, which borders Lebanon, the day after the outbreak of the Gaza war, in support of Hamas.
“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,” said Netanyahu, who visited Majdal Shams, on the Golan Heights, which borders Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
PHOTO MENAHEM KAHANA, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Druze and mourners surround the coffins of 10 of the 12 people killed in a rocket attack from Lebanon the previous day, during a mass funeral in the Druze town of Majdal Shams.
It was in this small Druze town where 12 boys and girls aged 10 to 16 died when the rocket fell on a football field. Dozens of residents protested Mr Netanyahu’s visit to Majdal Shams, gathered behind metal barriers under police surveillance.
Residents earlier attended the funeral of a boy killed in the strike, after the other victims were buried on Sunday, a tragedy that has sparked strong emotion in this town of around 11,000 people, close to Lebanon.
Hezbollah will pay “a high price,” Benjamin Netanyahu had already warned on Sunday, having received the green light from the security cabinet to “decide how and when to respond to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”
“Serious mistake”
Fearing a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, several airlines, including Air France and Lufthansa, have announced that they are suspending flights to Beirut.
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In 2006, Israel bombed Beirut airport during its war with Hezbollah.
Following Israeli threats, Hezbollah evacuated positions in eastern and southern Lebanon on Sunday, according to a source close to the movement. It also announced, as it has often done since October 9, that it had launched rockets at a military position in northern Israel, “in response” to the “assassination” of two of its fighters in an Israeli raid.
In Beirut, residents seem resigned. “This is part of our life,” Elie Rbeiz, in his sixties, told AFP. “All our lives we have known wars. What more could happen?”
Several countries are trying to avoid an escalation, said Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib. “We have received assurances that Israel will carry out a limited escalation” and “Hezbollah will respond in a limited manner.”
The United States, which blamed Hezbollah for the attack on the Golan, said it was working on a diplomatic solution and France indicated it wanted to “do everything to avoid an escalation.”
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian warned that Israel would make “a serious mistake with serious consequences if it attacked Lebanon” during a call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
Armed and financed by Iran, Hezbollah wields a preponderant influence in Lebanon and its detractors accuse it of being a state within a state. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, like Hamas.
PHOTO MOHAMED AZAKIR, REUTERS
Abdallah Bou Habib, head of Lebanese diplomacy.
“Ravages and panic” in Gaza
On Israel’s southern front, the Israeli army continued its air and land bombardments against the Gaza Strip, devastated by nearly ten months of war and threatened with famine according to the UN.
After a new evacuation order from the army, hundreds of Palestinians, luggage and mattresses crammed into trailers, fled al-Bureij and al-Chouhada (center).
In the south of the Gaza Strip, the army said it was continuing its operations in Rafah and Khan Younis against Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007.
“Every day, the Israeli authorities issue these orders forcing people to flee,” said the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, accusing Israel of causing “havoc and panic.”
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel carried out an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count 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 vowed to destroy Hamas and its army has launched an offensive that has so far killed 39,363 people, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not give details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.