Israel has launched a swift retaliation as it blamed Hezbollah for a strike which killed 12 children and young adults in the Golan Heights.
The strike was the deadliest attack in Israeli-held territory since the Hamas assault that sparked the war in Gaza.
Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday after the rocket hit a pitch where children were playing football in Majdal Shams – a Syrian village seized by Israel in 1967, occupied mainly by the Druze, an Arab minority who practice a form of Islam.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, which has been trading regular cross-border fire with Israel since October, insisted it had “absolutely nothing to do with” the attack on Saturday, after previously saying it had struck Israeli military targets in the Golan Heights.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz raised the prospect of a full-scale conflict, telling Axios: “The Hezbollah attack today crossed all red lines, and the response will be accordingly. We are approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon.”
Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation immediately after the deadly strike and returned from his visit to the United States early, claiming Hezbollah would “pay a heavy price”.
The Israeli Air Force said on Sunday that its fighter jets had conducted airstrikes against a series of “terrorist targets” deep inside Lebanese territory, including “weapons caches and terrorist infrastructure” in seven different areas. It is unclear whether there were any casualties.
Two Lebanese security sources had previously said that Hezbollah was on high alert and had preemptively cleared out some key sites in both Lebanon’s south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in the event of a possible Israeli attack.
Israel and Hezbollah have frequently exchanged attacks over the past nine months, forcing tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel to leave their homes.
