Thousands of mourners attended funeral ceremonies on Sunday for the 12 children and teenagers killed by a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Hezbollah denied any responsibility for the attack on Majdal Shams, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza, which has since spread to several fronts and now risks spilling into a wider regional conflict.
Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon overnight but a stronger response was expected following a meeting of the security cabinet at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a visit to the United States and met security officials ahead of the meeting.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was every indication that the rocket that hit a sports field where children were playing football had been fired by Hezbollah and said Washington stood by Israel’s right to defend itself.
But he said the U.S. did not want a further escalation of the conflict, which has seen daily air strikes and exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
In the meantime, families gathered for funerals in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized by most countries.
The Druze, an Arab minority who practice a form of Islam, make up more than half the 40,000-strong population of the Golan Heights, and large 커뮤니티 crowds of mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the village.
“We are in difficult moments. A heavy tragedy, a dark day has come to Majdal Shams,” said Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the Majdal Shams local council, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.
Hezbollah initially had announced it fired rockets at Israeli military sites in the Golan heights, but denied involvement in the attack on Majdal Shams, saying it had “absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard.”
However, Israel said the rocket was fired from an area north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon, placing the blame squarely on the Iranian-backed group and saying Hezbollah was “unequivocally responsible.”
It was not immediately clear if the children and teenagers killed in the strike were Israeli citizens, but Israeli officials have vowed retaliation for the strike.
“The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal,” Israel’s foreign ministry said.
Two security sources told Reuters 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.
Israeli forces have been exchanging fire for months with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon but both sides have appeared to be avoiding an escalation that could lead to an all-out war, potentially dragging in other powers including the U.S. and Iran.