Israel says it bombed Hezbollah positions deep in Lebanon | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Israel says Hezbollah crossed a “red line” after blaming the Lebanese group for Saturday’s deadly attack. Hezbollah denies the allegations.

The Israeli military said it had launched airstrikes on areas across Lebanon as the country’s political and military leadership discussed a response to a deadly attack on a soccer field in the occupied Golan Heights.

The military said early Sunday that its fighter jets had bombed Hezbollah weapons depots and infrastructure in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, in Shabriha and Burj el-Shemali near the southern city of Tyre, and in the villages of Kafr Lila, Rab al-Thalathine, Khiam and Tayr Harfa.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that Hezbollah had “crossed all red lines” after blaming the Lebanese group for a rocket attack that killed 12 people in the occupied Golan Heights.

“Saturday’s massacre represents a crossing of all red lines by Hezbollah. This is not an army fighting another army, but a terrorist organization that deliberately targets civilians,” the ministry said in a statement.

Hezbollah has “categorically denied” responsibility for the deadly attack. There are unconfirmed claims that the incident may have been caused by a misfired Israeli interceptor missile.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry warned Israel on Sunday against “new adventures in Lebanon,” using the Majdal Shams incident as a “pretext.”

“After ten months of mass killings in the Gaza Strip and the mass murder of Palestinian children and women, the Israeli apartheid regime is trying to use a fabricated scenario to divert public opinion and global attention from its widespread crimes in Palestine,” spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement, adding that Israel was responsible for any steps that further destabilize the region.

“A turning point”

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reported from Beirut, Lebanon, that the recent Israeli attacks were a message to Hezbollah, but not the promised response.

“What we saw overnight was completely normal activity, something we have seen over the past 10 months since Hezbollah opened a front in southern Lebanon to help the people of Gaza,” she said.

According to Khodr, the Israeli response and whether it would hit military or civilian targets could mark a “turning point” that will determine the course of the border conflict that began on October 8.

Israel’s security cabinet is due to meet later Sunday to decide on a response to Saturday’s rocket attack on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed at least 12 people.

In a video message from the scene of the attack on Sunday morning, Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi reiterated the claim that the soccer field was hit by an Iranian-made Falaq rocket loaded with a 53-kilogram warhead. This rocket has been used by Hezbollah since the border fighting began last October.

“This is a Hezbollah rocket. And whoever fires such a rocket into an urban area wants to kill civilians, wants to kill children,” he said.

Halevi added that the Israeli military was “increasing its readiness for the next phase of fighting in the north” as it continued to attack the Gaza Strip with deadly effect.

He and other commanders met with Druze leaders and community members in the area.

The United Nations, the United States and the European Union condemned the attack. The UN and the EU called on all parties to exercise “restraint” to prevent a full-scale war. The 27-member bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called for an “independent international investigation.”

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, more than 350 civilians have been killed as a result of repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon. More than 20 Israelis have been killed in attacks from Lebanon.