Deadly rocket attack on Golan Heights k.!lls 12 youths, escalating tensions betw

Deadly rocket attack on Golan Heights k.!lls 12 youths, escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to "h!t the enemy hard" after r0cket f!re from Lebanon k!.lled 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and again raised fears that the war in Gaza will spread.

Iran wa.rned Israel any new military "adventures" in Lebanon could lead to "unforeseen cons3quences". Western powers, including France, Germany and Britain, condemned the att@ck and appealed for calm.

The European Union called for an independent probe into what happened.

Israel's army called it "the d3adliest att@ck on Israeli civilians" since the October 7 attack that began the w.ar in Gaza and triggered regular exchanges of f!re across the Lebanese border.

Israel blamed Lebanon's Hezbollah movement for f!ring a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket but the Iran-backed group — which has regularly targeted Israeli military positions — said it had "no connection" to the inc!dent.

It said, however, that it had fired one such r0cket on Saturday toward an Israeli military target in the Golan.

The rocket f!re in Majdal Shams, whose population are Arabic-speaking Druze, prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States. Upon arrival he went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, his office said.

He said "Hezbollah will pay a heavy price" for the att.ack, "a price it has not paid before."

The Israeli foreign ministry said Hezbollah had "crossed all red l!nes".

Militants also se!zed 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are d3ad.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has k.!lled at least 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant d3aths.

In Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis on Sunday, the civil defence agency reported five k.!lled in an Israeli str!ke that hit several tents housing displaced Palestinians at a humanitarian zone.

The r0cket str!ke on Majdal Shams h!t a football pitch and k!.lled young people who local authorities said were aged 10 to 16. Israeli police said an 11-year-old boy was still missing. Thousands of residents crowded the town's streets in a tearful fun3ral ceremony for many of the d3ad.

– 'Bloodbath' –
Early on Sunday, Gallant visited the scene, where a building was pockmarked by shrapnel.

According to Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, the position Hezbollah said it targeted is about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the town, putting it "within margin of error" of the inaccurate r0ckets.

But he said "the possibility of a misf!re" from an Israeli air defence miss!le could not be ruled out and there should be an independent invest!gation into what happened.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said there was "every indication" Hezbollah was behind the r0cket str!ke.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the "bloodbath" and also said there should be "an independent international investigation into this unacceptable inc!dent."

The United Nations urged "maximum restraint", in a joint statement from their special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) chief Aroldo Lazaro.

Intensifying exchanges of fire "could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief," they said.

Britain condemned the att@ck, as did Germany, whose foreign ministry urged "cool heads."

The r0cket f!re on Majdal Shams came after an Israeli str!ke k!.lled four Hezbollah f!ghters in south Lebanon, prompting the militant group to announce a flurry of retaliatory r0cket att@cks against the Golan and northern Israel.

Lebanon urged "an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts", later calling for an "international investigation" into the str!ke on Majdal Shams.

Egypt, which has been seeking to br0ker a Gaza c3asef!re deal alongside Qatar, warned against "the d@ngers of a new w@r front opening in Lebanon".

– Gaza ceasef!re effort –
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani meanwhile w@rned that "any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instab!lity, insecu.rity and w@r in the region".

Israel's Foreign Ministry called the incident in Majdal Shams a "mass@cre" and accu$ed Hezbollah of deliberately targeting civilians.

Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

Syria denounced Israel's "false accusat!ons" against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for "pretexts to enlarge its aggression."

The v!0lence since October has k!.lled at least 527 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the d3@d have been f!ghters but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.

According to Israel's army, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been k!lled so far in northern Israel.

In a speech to the United States Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel will do "whatever it must" to secure its northern border.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said that if a ceasef!re is reached in Gaza his movement would stop cross-border att@cks.

Blinken said the best way to prevent the Gaza confl!ct from escalating "is to get the ceasef!re in Gaza that we're working so hard on".

Months of effort have failed to secure a deal, but Egyptian state-linked media said talks were to take place Sunday in Rome.

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