Israeli authorities react after a rocket was fired across the Lebanese-Israeli border at a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on July 27, 2024. Photo by Gil Eliyahu/Reuters
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel said a rocket attack on a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday killed at least 10 people and wounded several others, including children, just hours after an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed three members of the militant group Hezbollah.
The attack was the deadliest on an Israeli target since fighting between the two countries erupted in October last year and raised fears of a wider conflict in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return from the United States as soon as possible, his office said.
clock: Hezbollah attacks in northern Israel raise fears of full-scale war
Hezbollah said it attacked a military base in the Golan Heights in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Lebanese villages.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told The Associated Press that the group “categorically denies the attack on Majdal Shams.”
“Hezbollah is lying,” spokesman Daniel Haghari told reporters, adding that all 10 of those killed were between 10 and 20 years old, and that more than 20 were wounded.
In a statement on Saturday, the Israeli army said that according to information it had, “the rocket fire at Majdal Shams was carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
“The Hezbollah terrorist group is behind the rocket attack that took place early this evening at the Majdal Shams football field, killing many civilians, including children,” the statement said.
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service initially reported that 11 people were injured, nine of them in serious condition, aged between 10 and 20. Israeli state broadcaster Kan showed footage of people being carried on stretchers to ambulances from a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams.
“These are kids who were on a soccer field,” local council speaker Beni Ben Mubchaar told Israel's Channel 12. “A red line was crossed today,” he said, calling on Israeli leaders to target Hezbollah's top commanders.
The Israeli army said it had seen one bullet fired towards the area from Lebanon, adding that it was working with the IDF to evacuate the injured. Channel 12 aired footage of a large explosion in one of the town's valleys.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon. The group earlier said three of its members were killed on Saturday, but did not say where. The Israeli military added that its air force targeted a Hezbollah arms depot in the border village of Kfar Kila, where militants were inside at the time.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it in 1981.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging gunfire almost daily since the war in Gaza began in an Oct. 7 Hamas surprise attack that left some 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage. Israel launched attacks that have so far killed more than 39,000 people, according to local health officials, and forced more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip's population to flee, creating a humanitarian disaster in the Strip.
Gunfights along the Lebanon-Israel border have escalated over the past few weeks with Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks further from the border.
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also about 90 civilians and non-combatants, since early October. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians had been killed by Saturday.
Mroueh reported from Beirut.
left:
Israeli authorities react after a rocket was fired across the Lebanese-Israeli border at a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on July 27, 2024. Photo by Gil Eliyahu/Reuters
