“PWe will prepare to respond to Hezbollah, complete our assessments and take action,” said army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
“This is the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7,” he added at a press conference.
The Israeli army blamed the attack on Hezbollah, which denied responsibility, although it has claimed responsibility for other attacks carried out today in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Lebanese government also issued a statement calling for an “immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts” and condemning all attacks against civilians.
The United Nations mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has announced that it is talking to the parties to the conflict in order to calm tensions. “We are in contact with the parties to try to calm tensions,” the mission’s spokesman, Andrea Tenenti, told the Spanish news agency EFE.
Israeli police, army and rescue teams announced today that rockets fired from Lebanon hit the city of Majdal Shams in the annexed Golan Heights in northern Israel, killing 11 people – most of them young people playing football in the city – and injuring 34, according to the latest report from the Israeli army.
Eli Bin, director general of Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, said 17 of the 34 injured were in critical condition, 10 of whom were children.
According to the Israeli army, helicopters, ambulances and mobile intensive care units have been sent to Majdal Shams – a city on the border between northern Israel, southern Lebanon and Jordan.
“We arrived at a football pitch and saw destruction and burning objects. The injured were lying on the grass,” rescuer Idan Avshalom said, quoted in a statement released by the MDA.
“Officers and bomb disposal experts from Northern District Police are currently securing the area to prevent any further risk to the public,” police said in a separate statement.
The rocket attack came after a Lebanese security source announced that four fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah had been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has confirmed the deaths of four of its fighters. The movement has been exchanging fire with the Israeli army on an almost daily basis in the cross-border area since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.
Hezbollah says its attacks on Israel are aimed at supporting its ally Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since the day after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7. In recent weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border has intensified, with Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks hitting several locations further and further from the border.
Today’s violence comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire proposal that would end the nearly 10-month war and free the roughly 110 hostages still being held in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Israel has launched an offensive that has killed more than 39,000 people, according to local health authorities.
Read Also: Rockets fired from Lebanon kill 9, injure 34 in Golan Heights
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2605854/israel-esta-a-preparar-se-para-responder-ao-hezbollah
