The Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Sunday Israel would respond to the “massacre” of young people and children in a Druze village near the Lebanese border, blaming Tehran for the attack while also warning of a ‘last chance’ for diplomacy.
At least 12 people were killed in the missile strike that hit a football field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.
Majdal Shams is mainly inhabited by Druze, an Arabic-speaking religious community.
Israel said Iran-backed Hezbollah had carried out the attack and vowed to retaliate. The Shiite militia denied having had anything to do with it.
The Israeli chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said late on Saturday during a visit to the site of the missile strike that the rocket used to hit the village was an Iranian missile equipped with a warhead weighing 53 kilograms.
UN representatives have called on both sides “to exercise maximum restraint” as fears grow that the strike could fuel an all-out war in the region.
Israel ministry warns: ‘lastchance’ for diplomacy
“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,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.
“Israel will exercise its right and duty to act in self-defence and will respond to the massacre … The world must now place full responsibility on Iran and its terrorist proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
“The only way that the world can prevent a full-scale war which would be devastating also to Lebanon is by forcing Hezbollah to implement Security Council Resolution 1701.”
This resolution calls on Hezbollah to withdraw beyond the Litani River, some 30 kilometres from the border between Israel and Lebanon.
“Now is the very last minute to do so diplomatically,” Marmorstein warned.
Lebanon reports series of Israeli strikes
Israel launched a series of strikes early Sunday into Lebanon in retaliation for the deadly attack in the Golan Heights, Lebanon’s official news agency NNA reported.
An Israeli strike targeted a house in the town of Burj al-Shemali near Tyre, resulting in injuries among residents and significant damage, it added.
Israeli warplanes conducted multiple strikes in the city of Tyre, located in southern Lebanon, causing no casualties, NNA reported.
Additionally, NNA reported that an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a house some 70 kilometres from the capital Beirut, causing material damage.
Earlier, the Israeli air force said it had attacked several Hezbollah targets in Lebanon overnight.
Among the targets were weapons depots as well as combat infrastructure, the Israeli army said on Telegram on Sunday, publishing video footage said to show the overnight attacks.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Germany condemns the attack on village
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday condemned the rocket attack and called for “cool heads” saying that “far too many people have already died in this conflict” in a post on X.
“It is appalling that children and young people who simply wanted to play football were killed. My condolences go out to their families,” Baerbock wrote.
Israel and the Hamas-allied Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily since the start of the Gaza war on October 7 last year.
The intensity of these clashes in northern Israel and southern Lebanon has recently increased significantly. There have been fatalities on both sides, raising fears that the conflict could spread wider in the region.
Israel conquered the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau of strategic importance, in 1967 and annexed the area in 1981, although it is considered Syrian territory occupied by Israel under international law.
More than 50,000 people live in the area, with just over half of them Jewish Israelis, along with Druze and a small Alawite minority.
