Israel vows to strike 'enemy with force' after deadly strike on annexed Golan

Israel vowed Sunday to "strike the enemy with force” the day after a deadly strike on the annexed Syrian Golan Heights, blamed on Lebanese Hezbollah, raising fears of a regional conflagration in the midst of the war in the Gaza Strip. 60~/p>

Iran has warned Israel of the “consequences” of a retaliatory attack in Lebanon. “Any action (…) can lead to the worsening “of the war in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.

According to Israel, a rocket attack from Lebanon on a football field in the town of Majdal Shams on Saturday killed 12 boys and girls aged between ten and sixteen and injured around 30 others. Police reported Sunday that an eleven-year-old boy was missing.

This strike was carried out with an Iranian Falaq-type rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead, according to Israel. Hezbollah, which denies being the author of the attack, is the only one to have it, said the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

He estimated that the Lebanese Islamist movement, supported by Iran, had “crossed all red lines” by shooting “on civilians”.

Hezbollah will pay “the high price” for this attack, warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned Sunday from a trip to the United States to chair a meeting of the security cabinet.

– “Act with composure” –

The border area between Lebanon and Israel and the Golan Heights © AFP – Patricio ARANA, Sabrina BLANCHARD, Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA

The shooting came after the announcement of the death of four Hezbollah fighters in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. On Saturday evening, the Lebanese movement said it had launched rockets towards military positions in the Golan, including a Falaq, before denying being behind the shooting on Majdal Shams.

This small Druze town is located on the Golan Heights, a strategic region at the crossroads of three countries (Syria, Lebanon, Israel) that was largely conquered by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel annexed two-thirds of it in 1981, but the international community has never recognized this annexation.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited the soccer field in Majdal Shams on Sunday. In a discussion with the head of Israel's Druze community, he “insisted” that Israel would “strike the enemy with force,” according to his ministry.

Thousands of people gathered in the city on Sunday for the victims' funerals, during which women dressed in black abayas and white veils crowded around the coffins.

It was “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7,” the date of the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, according to Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army.

The UN has warned of a “wider conflagration” in the region, the European Union has called for an “independent international investigation” and Berlin called for “acting with cool blood”. Paris condemned the attack, as did the United Kingdom, which said it feared an “escalation”.

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Lebanon called for an “international investigation” and warned that an Israeli attack on its territory could cause a regional conflagration. Egypt warned of “the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon.”

Washington assured that it “supports the efforts” of Israel aimed at “putting an end to these terrible attacks.” For US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “all indications” show that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah.

Objects are scattered in front of a wall punctured by shrapnel at a sports center, the day after a rocket fired from Lebanon into the Druze town of Majdal Shams, on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, on July 28, 2024 © AFP – Menahem Kahana

Syria has denounced Israel's “false accusations” against the Lebanese movement.

“It could be a missed shot or an Israeli defense missile intended to intercept an air target,” said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Near East and Gulf Institute for Military Analysis (Inegma).

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has been exchanging fire daily with the Israeli army on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

– Meeting planned in Rome –

A Palestinian man stands near the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a strike in Gaza City on July 27, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos infiltrating from Gaza into southern Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who have died, according to the army.

The offensive launched in response by Israel has left at least 39,324 dead, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Gaza government, led by Hamas, which does not give information on the number of civilians and combatants killed.

On Sunday, Israeli gunfire targeted Gaza City in the north and the Nusseirat and al-Bureij camps in the center, according to Hamas.

In the south, gunfire rang out in Rafah and the army blew up several residential buildings in Khan Younis, according to witnesses.

The day before, an Israeli strike on a school sheltering refugees in the center left 30 dead, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement. The army said it had targeted “terrorists.”

Palestinians injured in an Israeli strike on a school in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on July 27, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

After the failure of multiple negotiations on a truce associated with the release of hostages, a meeting of representatives of the mediators – Egypt, United States, Qatar – with the head of Israeli intelligence is to take place Sunday in Rome.

Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, accuses Benjamin Netanyahu of blocking any agreement.

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