2024-07-27 21:45:57
CTK
Updated 2 hours ago
Ten children and young people died on Saturday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in a rocket attack launched from Lebanon. The rocket hit the football field in the Druze village of Majdal Šams. More than ten other people were injured, six of them in serious condition.
The attack raises fears of an outbreak of open war between Israel and the Shiite Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which Israeli officials have blamed for today’s strike and vowed to retaliate. The Israeli army reported that the dead were between ten and 20 years old.
However, Mohamed Afif, a senior member of Hezbollah, told Reuters shortly after the attack that the group was not responsible for the Majdal Shams attack.
In response to Afif’s statement, the Israeli military said in a statement that “based on its assessment and the information available to it, the terrorist group Hezbollah is behind the rocket fire on Majdal Shams.”
Crossing the red line
One of the paramedics who responded to the scene spoke of extensive damage and fire. “It was children who were on that playground,” said Beni Ben Muvchar, head of the Majdal Shams municipal council. “The red line was crossed today,” he said on Israel’s Channel 12 television. According to pictures on social media, the playground is part of a leisure complex in a densely built-up area.
Israeli Defense Minister Joav Galant discussed the situation with Chief of the General Staff Hercim Halevi. The Times of Israel writes that according to the Israeli army, the rocket that hit the soccer field was quite heavy. He is investigating why air defenses failed to neutralize the missile.
The Jewish state occupied the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria during the war in 1967 and annexed them in 1982, contrary to a UN Security Council resolution. The United Nations, the European Union and the League of Arab States (LAS) consider the Golan Heights to be territory occupied by Israel. Syria does not recognize Israel as a state.
The AFP agency, citing a source from security circles, reported that four members of Hezbollah were killed in Israeli attacks in the southern Lebanese village of Kfir Kila.
Immediately after the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, which was provoked by the unprecedented attack of the terrorist movement Hamas on southern Israel on October 7 last year, Hezbollah, allegedly in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, started shelling the territory of northern Israel almost daily. The Israeli air force regularly responds to these attacks by striking the positions of Hezbollah, which has the military and political support of Iran. In recent weeks, violence on the Lebanese-Israeli border has intensified, with Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks being carried out further and further from the border.