By Maayan Lubell, Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – A rocket attack on a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 11 people, including children, on Saturday, Israeli officials said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to respond against the Iran-backed Lebanese group .
Hezbollah has denied any responsibility for the attack, the deadliest on Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of the Gaza conflict.
“Hezbollah’s 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,” said the Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Axios.
In a written statement, Hezbollah said: “The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard.” The group had already announced several rocket attacks against Israeli military positions elsewhere in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire in areas close to the Lebanese-Israeli border since the outbreak of the Gaza war, in a conflict that has raised fears of an all-out conflict between the heavily armed adversaries.
The Israeli ambulance service said 13 more people were injured by a rocket fired from Lebanon that hit a football pitch in the Druze village of Majdal Shams.
“We witnessed great destruction when we arrived at the football field, as well as items that were on fire. There were victims on the grass and the scene was horrific,” said Idan Avshalom, a doctor at the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
A witness told Reuters: “He fell on the football field, they are all children… a lot of bodies and remains are on the field, we don’t know who they are.” She asked not to be identified.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was due to return to Israel from the United States on Saturday night, said he would anticipate his flight and call his security office upon arrival.
His far-right coalition ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called for harsh retaliation, including against the Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
“For the death of children, Nasrallah should pay with his head. All of Lebanon should pay,” Smotrich posted on X. “The prime minister should return immediately. This is the time to act.”
Andrea Tenenti, spokeswoman for the UNIFIL peacekeeping force operating in southern Lebanon, told Reuters that his force’s commander was in contact with authorities in both Lebanon and Israel “to understand the details of the Majdal Shams incident and to keep calm”.
LEBANON ATTACKS
Hezbollah is the most powerful of a network of Iranian-backed groups across the Middle East that have entered the fray in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas since October.
Iranian-backed Iraqi groups and Yemen’s Houthis fired at Israel. Hamas has also carried out rocket attacks against Israel from Lebanon, as has the Lebanese Sunni group, Jama’a Islamiya, since October.
The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the area in the Middle East war, annexing it in 1981. This unilateral annexation was not recognized by most countries, and Syria demands the return of the territory.
More than 40,000 people live in the Israeli-occupied Golan, more than half of them Druze residents. The Druze are an Arab minority who practice a branch of Islam.
The attack on the football field followed an Israeli strike in Lebanon that killed four militants on Saturday. Two security sources in Lebanon said the four fighters killed in the Israeli attack on Kfarkila in southern Lebanon were members of different armed groups, with at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah, after identifying a militant cell entering the building.
At least 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon across the border, the military said.
Hezbollah previously claimed at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation for the Kfarkila strikes.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Maya Gebeilly and Laila Bassam in Beirut; writing by Helen Popper; editing by Frances Kerry and Andrew Heavens)
