Israel says all 10 people killed in attack on town in Israeli-controlled Golan Heights were 20 years old and younger

TEL AVIV, Israel – All 10 people killed in a rocket attack on a town in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights were between 10 and 20 years old, according to the Israeli military.

Several other people were injured in the attack on a soccer field, just hours after an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed three members of the militant Hezbollah group.

Hezbollah chief spokesman Mohammed Afif told the Associated Press that the group “categorically denies carrying out an attack on Majdal Shams.”

Chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari assured journalists: “Hezbollah is lying.”

The attack is the deadliest attack on an Israeli target since fighting broke out between the two enemies in October, and raises fears that a wider conflagration could break out in the region.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS. The previous AP story follows below.

A rocket attack on a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday killed at least ten people and injured several others, including children. Just hours earlier, an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon had killed three members of the militant Hezbollah group.

The attack was the deadliest attack on an Israeli target since fighting broke out between the two enemies in October and raised fears that a wider conflagration could break out in the region.

Hezbollah said it had attacked a military base in the Golan Heights in retaliation for Israeli attacks on a village in Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief spokesman Mohammed Afif told the Associated Press that the group “categorically denies carrying out an attack on Majdal Shams.”

The Israeli military said in a statement on Saturday that, according to the intelligence information it had, “the rocket launch at Majdal Shams was carried out by the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”

“The terrorist organization Hezbollah is behind the rocket launch at a soccer field in Majdal Shams, which resulted in numerous civilian casualties this evening, including children,” the statement said.

The Israeli medical service Magen David Adom initially reported 11 injured, nine of them in critical condition, and all between the ages of 10 and 20. The Israeli public broadcaster Kan aired footage showing some of them being carried on stretchers from a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams to ambulances.

“These were children on a soccer field,” Beni Ben Muvchar, chairman of the local council, told Israeli broadcaster Channel 12. “Today a red line was crossed,” he said, calling on the Israeli leadership to take targeted action against high-ranking Hezbollah commanders.

The Israeli military said it had identified a projectile heading toward the area from Lebanon, adding that it was working with the MDA to evacuate the injured. Channel 12 broadcast footage of a large explosion in one of the city’s valleys.

Hezbollah said in a statement that its militants fired Katyusha rockets at an Israeli army post in the Golan Heights in response to Israeli airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon. The group had previously said three of its members were killed on Saturday, but did not say where. The Israeli military said its air force had attacked a Hezbollah weapons depot in the border village of Kfar Kila, adding that militants were inside at the time.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed them in 1981.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged almost daily fire since the war in Gaza began. Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 killed around 1,200 people and took 250 hostage. Israel launched an offensive that has so far killed more than 39,000 people, displaced more than 80 percent of the area’s population, and created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, according to local health authorities.

In recent weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border has intensified with Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks that have struck ever further from the border.

Since the beginning of October, more than 450 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians were killed.

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Mroue reported from Beirut.