At least 12 dead, mostly children, after Hezbollah rocket strikes Israeli playground in deadliest attack since Oct. 7
At least 12 people — mostly children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 20 — were killed Saturday when a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in Israel-controlled Golan Heights in the deadliest attack on the Jewish state since the Oct. 7 massacre that set off its war with Hamas.
The rocket fired by the Lebanese terrorist group targeted the northern Druze town of Majdal Shams, officials said, adding that such an escalation could ramp up the ongoing war.
Israeli leadership immediately gathered to weigh its response.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz discussed the deadly attack with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and declared that “Hezbollah crossed all red lines” and the Jewish state was now “facing an all-out war” with the Lebanese terrorists.
“I have no doubt that we’ll pay a cost,” Katz said, adding Hezbollah will pay a higher toll for its actions.
When Israel does retaliate, Katz claims it would have the “full backing” of the United States and Europe.
After receiving word of Hezbollah’s attack, Netanyahu rushed back to Israel from Washington, DC, moving his flight up by three and a half hours.
He was still in the nation’s capital on Saturday after addressing Congress Wednesday, and having separate meetings with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In a video statement, the prime minister said he would not let the attack “pass in silence.”
Netanyahu added: “We embrace the families, embrace the entire Druze community in its difficult time, which is also our difficult time.”
The prime minister pledged that Israel “will not let this pass in silence.”
The White House did not immediately issue a statement.
“This is so serious,” said Trump, who learned of the attack as he was about to go on stage at an event in Nashville. “They have to respect our country. This would have never happened with us and we cannot let it continue.”
Up to 40 people were reported injured in the attack, with a handful listed in critical condition.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah denied carrying out the attack, which unfolded hours after an Israeli airstrike on the town of Kfarkela in southern Lebanon — about 10 miles away from Majdal Shams — killed four members of the terrorist sect.
A Hezbollah mouthpiece told the Associated Press the terror group “categorically denies carrying out an attack on Majdal Shams.”
Hezbollah did not suggest another culprit but did admit to firing rockets at the Golan Heights town of Ma’ale Gamla, roughly 40 miles to the south, in retaliation for the barrage fired at Kfarkela.
Israel Defense Forces issued a statement blaming the group, which has been lobbing rockets over Israel’s northern border since the war with Hamas started after that terror organization’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Southern Israel.
Israeli authorities said at least 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel Saturday.
An IDF spokesperson identified the mastermind behind Saturday’s attack as Ali Muhammad Yahya, who commands a launching site in the Chebaa area of Lebanon.
Saturday’s victims were from a community of Druze, an ethnoreligious Arab minority that maintains Arabic as their primary language. The insular Druze people represent just 1.6% of Israel’s total population.
The injured were taken to three local clinics, according to Idan Avshalom of Israel’s national emergency service.
“I left a nearby kibbutz and arrived at the scene within a few minutes. I saw a large commotion on the soccer field, with severe scenes of casualties and fatalities, destruction and burning objects,” he said, according to a post on the agency’s Facebook.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) issued a statement shortly after the attack, saying, “Since October 7, Hezbollah has been bombarding Israel with rockets, displacing up to [100,000] Israelis and terrorizing many more. The murder of [these] children is the latest manifestation of Hezbollah’s unrelenting terror.”
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called Saturday’s attack “heartbreaking” and that “the world cannot continue to sit in silence in the face of” Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan “Nasrallah’s terror attacks, which come at the behest of the empire of evil in Iran.”
Herzog vowed “the State of Israel will firmly defend its citizens and its sovereignty,” and offered prayers for the victims “and for the recovery of the wounded,” adding “there are no words that can comfort the families of the young victims who lost their lives through no fault of their own.”
“Hezbollah, armed and funded by Iran, does not distinguish between child or adult, soldier or civilian, Jew or Muslim, Druze or Christian,” he added. “Hezbollah terrorists brutally attacked and murdered children today, whose only crime was going out to play soccer. They did not return.”
The nation’s Culture and Sports Minister, Likud party leader Miki Zohar, said the time has come to “deal a fatal blow to Hezbollah,” adding in a statement, “the more we postpone the campaign, the more painful prices we will pay.”
Meanwhile, opposition Leader Yair Lapid also called for action against Hezbollah before blasting Netanyahu for being abroad.
He “should be in Israel at such times and take part in the management of the war,” said Lapid. “He does not care about anything but himself.”
Israeli officials said the military response to Hezbollah’s aggression should be severe.
A senior Israeli official told Israel’s Channel 12 “the events in the north will bring about a dramatic turn in fighting in the area,” while another source told the station “the disaster at Majdal Shams could signal a change of direction in the war.”
Lebanon’s government issued a statement condemning the attack, but urging an “immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.”
The weekend attack comes ahead of another round of peace talks in Rome starting Sunday that will be joined by CIA Director Bill Burns, along with Mossad Director David Barnea, the Prime Minister of Qatar and the head of Egypt’s intelligence.
