(Majdal Shams) A rocket fired from Lebanon at the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights killed 11 people on Saturday, the deadliest attack on civilians in Israel since October 7, the Israeli army said, accusing Hezbollah of being behind it.
The 11 people, aged between 10 and 20, were killed when a rocket hit a soccer field in Majdal Shams, the Israeli army said, with 19 more injured, according to rescuers.
The Druze-populated town of Majdal Shams is located on the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon, and borders Syria. Many residents retain Syrian citizenship more than half a century after Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Its residents can study and work in Israel, but do not have the right to vote.
PHOTO GIL ELIYAHU, REUTERS
The army blamed the deadly shooting on Hezbollah.
Israeli police and the army said rockets hit several other sites in the Golan. The army blamed the deadly strike on Majdal Shams on the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, which denied being the perpetrator.
“We will prepare to respond to Hezbollah, we will complete our assessments and we will act,” army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a news conference, adding that it was “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in the evening that Hezbollah would pay “a high price” after this attack, “a price it has never paid before,” according to a statement from his office.
While traveling in the United States, Mr. Netanyahu decided to return to Israel “as quickly as possible,” according to his office.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said it had “no connection” to the deadly rocket attack.
PHOTO JALAA MAREY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
An Israeli army helicopter leaving the scene of the strike.
For its part, the Lebanese government said it “condemns all attacks against civilians.”
Children ‘violently killed’
“Hezbollah terrorists violently attacked and killed children today whose only crime was going out to play soccer,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said.
PHOTO AMMAR AWAD, REUTERS
“We arrived at a soccer field and saw destruction and objects on fire. Wounded people were lying on the grass,” rescuer Idan Avshalom said in a statement from Magen David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross.
An AFP correspondent saw medics carrying wounded people on stretchers from the hit site, where several members of the Israeli security forces were quickly deployed.
“Northern District Police officers and bomb disposal experts are currently securing the area to prevent any further risk to the public,” police said in a separate statement.
“These are the Druze community, Israeli citizens […]”We will defend the citizens of Israel and the Druze community,” Hagari stressed.
The rocket was fired after a Lebanese security source announced that four Hezbollah fighters had been killed by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
The powerful pro-Iranian movement has confirmed the deaths of four of its fighters. It opened a front against Israel after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the attack launched on October 7 by Hamas in Israel.
Hezbollah says its attacks on Israel are aimed at supporting its ally Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza.
With the new victims on Saturday, the violence since October 8 between the Israeli army and Hezbollah has left at least 527 dead in Lebanon, the majority of them fighters, but also 104 civilians, according to a report established by AFP from different sources.
On the Israeli side, at least 18 Israeli soldiers and 24 civilians were killed, according to the army.