2024-07-31 02:07:46
At least twelve young people were killed in an attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. This means that “all red lines have been crossed,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said.
A rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights threatens to bring Israel and Hezbollah to the brink of open war. The Lebanese Shiite militia has “crossed all red lines” with the attack, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
According to military sources, Israel’s air force attacked a number of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during the night. These included weapons depots and terrorist infrastructure, the Israeli military said on Telegram. It also released video footage that is said to show the attacks. The information could not be independently verified.
According to Lebanese sources, several residents were injured in the attacks. Israeli fighter jets attacked near the coastal city of Tyre in the south of the country, among other places, and caused serious damage, the state agency NNA reported. An Israeli drone also fired two missiles at a house in a village near Baalbek. There were initially no reports of new fatalities on the Lebanese side on Sunday morning.
On Saturday, at least twelve people aged between 10 and 20 were killed in a rocket attack in the Druze town of Majd al-Shams on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, most of them children and young people. According to Israeli sources, an Iranian-made rocket hit a busy soccer field there. Hezbollah said in a statement that it had nothing to do with the attack. However, the Israeli military classified this as false. Experts also believe that the rocket missed its actual military target.
During a visit to the site of the impact, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said: “We have examined the remains of the rocket on the wall of the football field. We can say that it is a Falak rocket with a warhead weighing 53 kilograms.” It was a rocket from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. “Anyone who fires such a rocket at a residential area wants to kill civilians, wants to kill children.”
The Chief of Staff expressed his solidarity with the Druze community in the occupied Golan Heights. “We are greatly increasing our readiness for the next phase of fighting in the north,” Halevi added. “We have the ability to strike very far from the State of Israel.” There will be further challenges. “If necessary, we will act with force.”
Iran has warned Israel against a “new adventure” in Lebanon. The country acts as a protective power for the Shiite Hezbollah and supports the organization with weapons and money. In anticipation of an Israeli attack, the militia has evacuated around a hundred of its posts in suburbs south of the capital Beirut, Lebanese media report. The armed forces could bomb there if Israel wanted to launch a particularly heavy and devastating counterattack.
Since the Gaza war began last October, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been fighting almost daily. The rocket attack on the Golan Heights followed an Israeli attack in the village of Kfar Kila near the Lebanese-Israeli border, in which Hezbollah said four of its members were killed. The Iranian-backed militia says it is acting in solidarity with the radical Islamic Hamas, which is also active in Lebanon.