In a rural town within the contested Golan Heights, a missile strike on a football field resulted in the death of at least 10 youngsters. The attack occurred amidst ongoing rocket attacks from Lebanon aimed at Israel. Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service, reported that many ambulances were deployed to attend to the victims, all of whom were between the ages of 10 and 20. Images depicted youthful victims scattered across the field, some in their sportswear.
Majdal Shams, a mainly Druze town located in the hilly Golan Heights near the Syrian border, was the target. Israel has held this region since 1967 and incorporated it in 1981. The strike escalated the situation even further after missile attacks were launched from southern Lebanon towards various towns in the Golan Heights.
Hizbullah senior official, Mohammad Afif, refuted claims of the group’s involvement in the Majdal Shams attack, pointing fingers at antagonistic media for peddling “fabricated claims”. The radical faction stated emphatically that it had no relation to the incident.
Upon getting wind of the unfortunate event, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to expedite his return back home from a visit to the USA, where he had engagements with President Joe Biden, Vice-President and nominee Kamala Harris, as well as ex-President Donald Trump. Israeli military and government officials placed the blame on Hizbullah for the strike.
The Israeli President Isaac Herzog, lamenting the shocking disaster in Majdal Shams, accused Hizbullah of being responsible for attack on “children whose only crime was playing football. And they never came back.”
Rocket attacks followed an assault by the Israeli air force on the town of Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon, located close to the Israeli-Lebanon border line. That attack resulted in the death of four, including some Hizbullah affiliates, as per a Reuters report and a statement by the group.
Additionally, Israeli forces claimed to have thwarted a drone from Lebanon aimed at an off-shore gas rig, while Lebanon’s government-run news reported an Israeli drone attack on the border town of Odaisseh, causing a fire.
In Meiss el-Jabal, a town based in Southern Lebanon, fires were initiated due to artillery shelling. Concurrently, Israeli aircrafts shattered the sound barrier as they flew over the southern city, Tyre. This is reported by the Guardian.