IDF announces strikes deep in Lebanon after Golan Heights attack

Israel’s military said it struck a string of Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon and in the country’s southern region on Sunday in response to a rocket strike from Lebanon that killed 12 people, mostly teenagers and children, on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to retaliate against what military officials said was the deadliest single attack on Israel since Oct. 7, raising fears of a wider escalation in hostilities. He is scheduled to return to Israel Sunday from his visit to the United States and is set to meet his security cabinet on Sunday afternoon.

United Hatzalah, an Israeli volunteer-based emergency medical services organization, said its paramedics arrived at the soccer field Saturday to a “very difficult scene.” Dozens of children lay injured. Nine of the victims were declared dead on the scene because of the severity of their injuries, the group said in an email. Israel’s military said those injured and killed were aged between 10 and 20.

Israel blamed the incident on Hezbollah, citing military intelligence and an assessment of the scene. The Lebanese militant group denied Israel’s claims. Fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border has intensified in recent months, with regular exchanges of fire between Hezbollah — which is backed by Iran — and Israel’s military.

“Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for this that it has not paid so far,” Netanyahu said Saturday on social media.

In a statement posted on Telegram early Sunday, Israel’s military said it was targeting Hezbollah weapons caches and terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, including in the areas of Chabriha, Borj El Chmali, and Beqaa, Kfarkela, Rab El Thalathine, Khiam, and Tayr Harfa.

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Saturday’s rocket attack in the Druze town of Majdal Shams followed a deadly strike in central Gaza, where local health authorities said at least 30 Palestinians were killed when Israel bombed a school that was sheltering displaced people. The Israel Defense Forces said it targeted a Hamas command and control center inside the Khadija school compound.

At least 39,258 people have been killed and 90,589 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 329 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.