Israel says Hezbollah will ‘pay the price’ after blaming it for attack on soccer

CNN
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Israel vowed Hezbollah will “pay the price” after blaming the Lebanese militant group for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children, touching off fears once again that an all-out war would envelop the region.

Hezbollah says it “firmly denies” it was behind the strike, the deadliest to hit Israel or Israeli-controlled territory since the October 7 attacks.

Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes against Hezbollah targets “deep inside Lebanese territory” and along the border overnight Sunday, according to a statement from the military on Sunday morning. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties from those strikes.

And on a visit to the town of Majdal Shams near the Syrian and Lebanese borders, where the rocket attack left children and teenagers dead on Saturday, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged a heavy response.

“Hezbollah is responsible for this and they will pay the price,” Gallant said. In an earlier statement from his office, he added: “We will hit the enemy hard.”

The Saturday attacks on the region involved “approximately 30 projectiles” crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory, in a barrage Israel’s military quickly blamed on the Iran-backed militant group.

It killed 12 children and left 44 people injured, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The children killed in the strike had been playing on a soccer field, according to a list from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and residents who spoke to CNN. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday backed Israel’s assessment, saying “every indication” suggested the strike was a rocket fired by Hezbollah.

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Some 20,000 Druze Arabs live in the Golan Heights, an area Israel seized from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War and annexed in 1981. Considered occupied territory under international law and UN Security Council resolutions, the area is also home to about 25,000 Israeli Jewish settlers.

Most Druze there identify as Syrian and have rejected offers of Israeli citizenship. The Regional Council of Majdal Shams said Sunday that none of the 12 children killed had Israeli citizenship.

Hundreds of mourners lined streets on Sunday for a funeral procession honouring the victims of the strike. People dressed in black sang as white coffins were carried to a funeral home, with others carrying flower wreaths.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid spoke at the funeral, saying “the children who died on that football field could…