Majdal Shams:
A rocket fired from Lebanon hit a soccer pitch in an Arab city within the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights Saturday, killing 11 kids in what the military described because the “deadliest assault on Israeli civilians since October 7”.
The military mentioned Lebanese group Hezbollah fired the lethal rocket that killed the kids aged between 10 and 20 years after they have been hit on the pitch within the city of Majdal Shams.
Many residents of the city retain Syrian nationality a long time after the territory’s occupation within the 1967 Arab-Israeli warfare.
The rocket fireplace got here after an Israeli strike killed 4 Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon prompting the Iran-backed militant group to announce a flurry of retaliatory rocket assaults towards the Golan and northern Israel.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari mentioned on X that 11 kids have been killed within the assault, whereas the emergency service Magen David Adom mentioned 19 others have been wounded when the rocket hit Majdal Shams.
“We’ll put together for a response towards Hezbollah… we are going to act,” Rear Admiral Hagari mentioned in a video assertion, including the rocket fireplace was the “deadliest assault on Israeli civilians since October 7” when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel sparking warfare in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was returning early from a go to to america, vowed that “Israel is not going to let this murderous assault go unanswered”.
“Hezbollah pays a heavy worth for it, a worth it has not paid earlier than,” he warned in a press release launched by his workplace.
– ‘Solely crime’ enjoying soccer –
Israeli President Isaac Herzog charged that Hezbollah had “brutally attacked and murdered youngsters immediately, whose solely crime was going out to play soccer”.
Hezbollah denied it was chargeable for the lethal strike.
“The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” it mentioned, referring to its navy wing.
The police and the military mentioned the rocket fired at Majdal Shams was a part of a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon which struck a number of areas within the Golan.
Ambulances, helicopters and cellular intensive care models have been deployed to the scene, the military mentioned.
“We arrived at a soccer pitch and noticed destruction and objects on fireplace. Injured folks have been mendacity on the grass,” paramedic Idan Avshalom mentioned in a press release issued by Magen David Adom.
An AFP correspondent noticed medics carrying away the wounded for therapy.
“Officers and police bomb disposal consultants from the northern district police are presently securing the world and looking for extra (rocket) remnants to remove any additional threat to the general public,” the police mentioned in a separate assertion.
The rocket fireplace got here after a Lebanese safety supply mentioned an Israeli strike killed 4 Hezbollah fighters within the southern village of Kfar Kila.
Hezbollah, which has exchanged near-daily cross-border fireplace with the Israeli military for the reason that Gaza warfare erupted final October, confirmed the deaths of 4 of its fighters.
It mentioned it carried out a dozen retaliatory assaults on Israeli targets, 9 within the area of two hours.
The violence since October has killed at the very least 527 folks in Lebanon, in line with an AFP tally. Many of the useless have been fighters, however they’ve included at the very least 104 civilians.
On the Israeli facet, 18 troopers and 24 civilians have been killed, in line with Israeli authorities.
The warfare in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s October 7 assault resulted within the deaths of 1,197 folks in Israel, principally civilians, in line with an AFP tally based mostly on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory navy marketing campaign in Gaza has killed at the very least 39,258 folks, in line with the well being ministry within the Hamas-run territory, which doesn’t present particulars on civilian and militant deaths.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)