Latest news on the Israeli war against Gaza: Rocket kills eleven people on the occupied Golan Heights | News on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari condemned the airstrike on Majdal Shams and said the victims were Israeli citizens.

Mouin Rabbani, an analyst at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Montreal, said the statement was false.

“The victims were not Israelis, but Syrians,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the Golan Heights were occupied by Israel in 1967, but the Druze population there does not have Israeli citizenship.

Israel claimed the attack was carried out by Hezbollah, which the group denies. “Israel has been threatening a major offensive in Lebanon for months, and the Israeli public firmly believes that the government should address the Hezbollah threat before a new school year begins in September,” Rabbani said.

It is “quite plausible,” the analyst added, that the attack will trigger an escalation. Netanyahu may have received the green light for this from the US during his visit to Washington.