Israel promised on Sunday to “hit the enemy hard” in response to fears that the Gaza conflict may spread after the death of twelve youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights due to rocket fire from Lebanon.
Iran issued an alert to Israel, threatening “unforeseen consequences” from any further military “adventures” in Lebanon.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint” in response to the rocket firing on Saturday.
According to Israel’s army, it was “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the incident on October 7, which started the current conflict in Gaza and led to frequent gunfire across the Lebanese border.
Israel blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket but the Iran-backed group — which has regularly targeted Israeli military positions — said it had “no connection” to the incident.
It said, however, that it had fired one such rocket on Saturday towards an Israeli military target in the Golan.
The rocket fire in Majdal Shams, whose population are Arabic-speaking Druze, prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States.
Upon arrival he went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, his office said.
“Hezbollah will pay a heavy price” for the attack, “a price it has not paid before”, he said.
After the meeting, his office said: “The members of the cabinet authorised the prime minister and the defence minister to decide on the manner and timing of the response against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation.” It offered no further details.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant earlier Sunday visited the scene of the attack and vowed Israel would “hit the enemy hard”.
Israel’s foreign ministry said Hezbollah had “crossed all red lines”.
