Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that 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 warning of a “last chance” for diplomacy.
At least 12 people were killed in the missile attack 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 carried out the attack and promised to retaliate. The Shiite militia denied having anything to do with it.
Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on Saturday night during a visit to the site of the missile attack that the rocket used to hit the village was an Iranian missile equipped with a warhead weighing 53 kilograms.
UN officials called on both sides “to exercise maximum restraint” as fears grow that the attack could fuel an all-out war in the region.
Israeli Ministry warns: ‘last chance’ for diplomacy
“The rocket that killed our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terrorist organization that has them in its arsenal,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.
“Israel will exercise its right and duty to act in self-defense and respond to the massacre… The world must now attribute full responsibility to Iran and its terrorist proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.”
“The only way the world can avoid a full-scale war that would also be devastating for Lebanon is to force Hezbollah to implement Security Council Resolution 1701.”
This resolution calls on Hezbollah to withdraw beyond the Litani River, about 30 kilometers from the border between Israel and Lebanon.
“Now is the last minute to do it diplomatically,” warned Marmorstein.
Lebanon reports series of Israeli attacks
Israel launched a series of attacks on Sunday in Lebanon in retaliation for the deadly attack on the Golan Heights, Lebanon’s official news agency NNA reported.
An Israeli attack targeted a house in the town of Burj al-Shemali, near Tyre, resulting in injuries among residents and significant damage, he added.
Israeli warplanes carried out several attacks on the city of Tyre, located in southern Lebanon, without causing any casualties, NNA reported.
Furthermore, the NNA reported that an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a house about 70 kilometers from the capital Beirut, causing material damage.
Earlier, the Israeli air force said it 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 showing the nighttime attacks.
We were unable to independently verify the allegations.
Germany condemns attack on village
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday condemned the rocket attack and called for a “cool head”, saying “many people have already died in this conflict” in a post on X.
“It is terrible that children and young people who simply wanted to play football were killed. My condolences go out to their families,” Baerbock wrote.
Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, have exchanged fire almost daily since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7 last year.
The intensity of these clashes in northern Israel and southern Lebanon has recently increased significantly. There were fatalities on both sides, increasing fears that the conflict could spread further in the region.
Israel conquered the Golan Heights, a strategically important rocky plateau, in 1967 and annexed the area in 1981, although it is considered Israeli-occupied Syrian territory under international law.
More than 50,000 people live in the area, with just over half of them being Israeli Jews, along with Druze and a small Alawite minority.
