Israel has vowed to retaliate for the highest civilian death toll in Israeli-controlled territory since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and diplomats rushed to prevent an escalation that threatened to erupt into all-out war after months of exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the border.
Weapons experts told The Associated Press that evidence appears to point to a rocket from Lebanon hitting the area, but said any impacts on civilians could have been accidental.
Here's what we know about this attack, and what's still unknown:
strike
The bomb ripped through the artificial turf carpet where children had been playing, leaving a crater about two metres wide, surrounded by burnt-out bicycles and scooters, some electric, with melted batteries. Shrapnel punctured the walls of nearby tents and shelters.
Israeli army chief of staff Hergi Halevi said the attack on the town of more than 11,000 people used an Iranian-made Falak rocket with a 53-kilogram (117-pound) warhead belonging to Hezbollah.
Israel released images of the rocket debris it said its military found, which showed visible writing matching photos of the Falak rocket provided by the military. The Associated Press could not confirm whether debris was found at the site. No munitions remains were found when an Associated Press reporter visited on Monday.
The Israeli military was investigating why the rocket was not intercepted by the country's famed Iron Dome missile defence system.
An Israeli military official told The Associated Press that Iron Dome radar detected the rocket launch but that no interceptor missiles were launched to shoot it down, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The military said the flight time may have been too short — Hezbollah had been testing rockets fired from shorter distances during the war. The military said the rocket was fired from about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from Majdal Shams, just north of the Lebanese town of Shebaa.
The Iron Dome alarm sounded its sirens at 6:18 pm and the local council of Majdal Shams reported that the rockets hit less than a minute later, leaving children with no room to flee to shelters.
“At such close ranges there is not enough time to activate the Iron Dome,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv-based think tank. He said it would be nearly impossible to intercept a rocket that is launched from within five kilometers and takes two to three seconds to reach its destination.
As a result, he said, interception rates along the northern border are much lower than in central Israel, where the Iron Dome batteries have more time to maneuver.
Hezbollah denial
Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful military and political force, quickly denied it was behind the attack – an unusual denial for a group that normally claims responsibility for all attacks.
It is unclear what Hezbollah would gain from attacking the Druze community. Many Druze in the Golan identify themselves as Syrian nationals, an ally of Hezbollah. Attacking them could deal a blow to the position of militant groups, including Lebanese Druze, as Hezbollah seeks to maintain support in the war.
Openly and deliberately attacking civilians would be a dramatic escalation of the near-daily fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. Group officials say they have no intention of escalating the war and will stop attacks if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
Hezbollah claims that the thousands of rockets it has fired since October are targeting military and intelligence facilities, but their rockets have also hit civilian areas. Before Saturday's bloodshed, attacks in Israel killed 13 civilians and 22 soldiers. In Lebanon, Israeli attacks have killed more than 500 people, including 90 civilians.
Shortly before news of Saturday's deadly attack broke, Hezbollah claimed at least two attacks using Katyusha and larger Falak-1 rockets targeting a military base on Mount Hermon, about 3 kilometers (2 miles) north of Majdal Shams.
Television stations and media outlets allied with Hezbollah were also quick to deny that the group was behind the attack, and questioned whether Israel was looking for a pretext to expand the war against Lebanon and Hezbollah amid the toughest efforts yet to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.
Was that a mistake?
Experts say the shrapnel and impact patterns are consistent with a rocket attack.
“Evidence on the ground and at the impact site is highly consistent with a rocket of the same type and size as the Farak rocket,” said Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The 53-kilogram (117-pound) warhead detonates on impact, delivering a lethal explosive force and creating irregular fragmentation.
Weir said the damage was not consistent with a scenario of an attack by a malfunctioning air defense missile, which shoots regularly shaped pieces in all directions, but there was no visible trace of such debris.
Weapons analyst Chris Cobb-Smith said the shape of the crater and the direction the fence was blown over suggested the rocket came from the north.
He said without an independent verification of the ammunition remains it was impossible to say who was responsible.
Weir said it was possible that a Hezbollah rocket aimed at a military position on Mount Hermon missed its target and landed in Majdal Shams. He said a variety of errors could have occurred, including mechanical failure or human error in estimating the distance.
“These things happen even to the best-trained troops,” he said, “so given that this was an unguided rocket, it's possible that this was an error.”
The Druze position
After Israel blamed Hezbollah for the blast, many Druze leaders in Lebanon, Syria and Israel spoke out against what they called an attempt to sow rifts in their close-knit communities over the attack. Druze, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are divided in the three countries.
On Monday, around 300 residents of Majdal Shams protested against a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, yelling that he was using the bloodshed for political gain.
In Majdal Shams, part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel in 1981, only 20 percent of residents have accepted Israeli citizenship, and many still consider themselves Syrian nationals.
“It certainly wasn't aimed at Majdal Shams. There are many Israeli military bases around the town. I think this threat was heading in that direction,” said Nabih Abu Saleh, a medic in the town who rushed to the scene on Saturday.
Abu Saleh, a doctor with 25 years of experience, was completely unprepared for what he saw: body parts were discovered 100 meters from the blast: one of his nephews was killed and another was wounded.
The army said the Iron Dome sirens sounded 30 times in Majdal Shams during the conflict, and a rocket hit just outside the town a few months ago, Abu Saleh said.
“We have buried our children and we do not want retaliation,” he said. “We have family in Lebanon, we have family in Syria and we have brothers here in Israel.”
El Deeb reported from Beirut.
