A presumed rocket attack by Hezbollah hit a town, Majdal Shams, on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday killing 12 children and teens who had been playing on a soccer field. Another 44 people were wounded.
Hezbollah refuses to claim responsibility for the attack, which Israel has already responded to. The IDF hit targets deep inside Lebanon and Hezbollah installations along the border.
Witnesses say “approximately 30 projectiles” crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory. While other terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad might have the desire to attack Israel, 30 projectiles are a significant number that terrorist groups would be unlikely to possess or use.
Naturally, the fears of a wider war were ratcheted up after the strike.
"What happened today could be the trigger we have been worried about and tried to avoid for 10 months," a U.S. official told Axios.
The Hezbollah strike illustrates the dangerous game the terrorists are playing. They keep pulling the lion's tail, assuming the lion will ignore the annoyances.
But the danger is they might tug on the cat's tail a bit too hard, leading to the lion turning around and biting their heads off.
Vice President Kamala Harris called it the "most serious targeting" of Israeli civilians since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Donald Trump had a different take.
Former President Donald Trump said the attacks — which targeted the minority Druze community — “cannot be forgotten” and pointed the finger at the Biden administration.
“I want to condemn the evil attack on Israel that took place today, a missile launched by Hezbollah killed at least a dozen children, young children. They were playing on a soccer field in the Golan Heights,” Trump told the crowd in St. Cloud.
“Today’s attack on Israel cannot be forgotten and will go down as another moment in history created by a weak and ineffective United States President and Vice President,” Trump said.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government may be nearing the breaking point. Netanyahu cut his U.S. trip a day short to return to Israel and convene his security cabinet to discuss the Hezbollah attack.
“There is no doubt that Hezbollah has crossed all the red lines here, and the response will reflect that,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israeli Channel 12. “We are nearing the moment in which we face an all-out war.”
The tit-for-tat attacks carried out between Israel and Hezbollah have become more ferocious as Israel has recently targeted senior Hezbollah commanders and Hezbollah has begun using ever more sophisticated rockets.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the rocket that hit the soccer field was a “Falaq 1 Iranian rocket carrying a 50kg warhead.”
“This is a model that is owned exclusively by Hezbollah, and tonight it caused the deaths of 12 young boys and girls,” he added.
The White House agreed, but is saying the attack was an "accident."
While the Biden administration believes Hezbollah carried out the attack, the working assumption is that it was an accident, a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive assessments. The person cautioned that U.S. officials don’t yet have a definitive conclusion about the intention behind the attack.
Fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border has intensified in recent months, with regular exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel’s military. For months, the United States has pushed to de-escalate hostilities on that front. Blinken reiterated Sunday that he and other top U.S. policymakers “don’t want to see the conflict escalate,” and that they were working to ease tensions and bring about a cease-fire deal in Gaza, which he said would reduce flare-ups on the Israel-Lebanon border.
I don't think Hezbollah cares whether it was an "accident" or not. As long as there are dead Israelis, they see no difference. Israel has already reached its "definitive conclusions" and will act accordingly.
