Netanyahu vows retaliation against Hezbollah after weekend strike kills 12 children
30 July 2024, 00:06
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack which killed 12 children.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday promised heavy retaliation against Hezbollah after a weekend rocket attack killed 12 children in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Israel has blamed Hezbollah for Saturday’s rocket strike that hit a football pitch where children played.
Hezbollah denied any role in the strike.
US Secretary of State has stressed the “importance of preventing escalation” in conversations with Israeli officials in the wake of the strike.
Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, have been in almost constant conflict since Hamas’ attack on October 7.
On Monday, Israel launched strikes on Labanon that hit a motorcycle, killing two people and wounding three others, Lebanese state media said
Netanyahu vowed further retaliation as he visited the football pitch where the strike landed on Monday.
“These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” he said as officials laid a wreath.
“The state of Israel will not and cannot overlook this. Our response will come, and it will be severe,” he said, adding that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s visit was protested by nearly 300 friends and relatives of the victims, who accused him of exploiting the children’s deaths for political gain.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also visited the town, where he said Hezbollah will “pay a price” for the attack.
He added: “We will let actions speak for themselves.”
According to the IDF, Hezbollah fired an Iranian-made Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead.
More than 500 people, including 90 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon since October 7.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed them in 1981.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily fire since the war in Gaza started after Hamas' surprise attack on October 7 killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage.
Israel launched an offensive that has so far killed more than 39,000 people, according to local health authorities, displaced more than 80% of the territory's people and triggered a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past few weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel intensified with Israeli airstrikes and rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah striking deeper and further away from the border.
Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.
