Twelve young people were killed in an attack from Lebanon. Could this trigger a war between Israel and Hezbollah?

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Middle East braced for a possible outbreak of violence on Sunday after Israeli authorities said Rocket from Lebanon hit a football field on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. 12 children and young people were killed. According to the military, this was the deadliest attack on civilians since October 7. The strike raised fears of a larger regional war between Israel and Hezbollah, which denied involvement in the attack.

The Israeli military said it attacked several targets in Lebanon overnight, but said the intensity of the attacks was comparable to months of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Saturday’s attack came at a sensitive time as Israel and Hamas are currently negotiating a ceasefire to end the nearly 10-month war in the Gaza Strip and free the approximately 110 hostages still being held there.

Here’s a look at the wider impact of Saturday’s attack:

What happened?

On Saturday, shortly before sunset, a rocket hit a soccer field where dozens of children and young people were playing in the Druze town of Majdal Shams. The town is located about 12 kilometers south of Lebanon and close to the Syrian border. According to the Israeli military, 12 young people between the ages of 10 and 20 were killed and 20 injured.

“I feel darkness inside and outside. Nothing like this happened here,” said Anan Abu Saleh, a resident of Majdal Shams, from the soccer field on Saturday evening. “It cannot be explained. I saw children. I don’t want to say what I saw, but it is terrible, really terrible. We need more security.”

Shrapnel and blood splatter littered the field as rescue workers collected burned backpacks and bicycles. Overnight, residents began setting up hundreds of chairs in the field where the attack took place to hold a mass memorial ceremony. Residents told Israeli media it was the only place in the city that could accommodate the tens of thousands of people expected.

On Sunday morning, many of the bodies were brought to a community center in Majdal Shams, where relatives wept over the coffins. At midday, the coffins, draped in white cloths and bearing photographs of the victims, were taken to the cemetery, hurled through a crowd of thousands and lined up for burial. An 11-year-old child is still missing, local residents told Israeli media.

Who are the Druze?

The Druze are a religious sect that began as an offshoot of Shiite Islam. There are Druze communities in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. According to Yusri Hazran of the Hebrew University, who is himself Druze and studies minorities in the Middle East, there are about 140,000 Druze in Israel, 25,000 of whom live in four towns in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

The Druze are considered to be Israel’s most loyal citizens. Many Druze serve in the Israeli army, although relations between Druze in the Golan Heights and the authorities are more difficult.

Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategically important plateau above northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981. Much of the international community considers the area to be occupied territory.

While Druze leaders in the Golan still profess their loyalty to Syria, relations with Israel are generally good. The Druze towns in the Golan are a popular vacation destination for Israelis and have numerous hotels and restaurants. Most Druze are fluent in Hebrew.

What could this mean for Lebanon and for a larger war?

Attacks on the Israeli-Lebanese border have been simmering just below the threshold of open war since the conflict began in October, but the death toll and the young age of the victims could prompt Israel to respond more harshly.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel the day after the October 7 Hamas attack, and Israel responded by reportedly targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure with airstrikes and drones. Most of the attacks were limited to the area on both sides of the border, although Israel also murdered Hezbollah and Hamas leadership further north in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have evacuated the area.

Since the beginning of October, more than 500 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians. On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians were killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in the United States at the time of the attack, warned that Hezbollah “will pay a high price for this attack that it has not yet paid.”

Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi met with Majdal Shams leaders on Saturday night and said Israel was preparing for the “next phase of fighting” in the north. “We know how to strike even far from the State of Israel,” he said.

In an unusual move, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack, but Halevi said the attack was a Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead belonging to Hezbollah.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday: “Everything indicates that the rockets or missile did indeed come from Hezbollah.” In a meeting in Tokyo with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Japanese counterparts, Blinken said Israel had the right to defend itself, but the US did not want an escalation of the conflict.

The Lebanese government, in a statement that did not mention Majdal Shams, called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts” and condemned all attacks on civilians.

Iran could also be drawn into a conflict, warning Israel on Sunday that a violent reaction to the attack on the Golan Heights would have “unprecedented consequences”.

“Any unwise action by the Zionist regime is the ground for expanding instability, insecurity and war in the region,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The years-long shadow war between Iran and Israel broke openly in April when Iran fired 300 missiles and drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted, in response to the killing of an Iranian general.

What impact could this have on the war in Gaza?

An Egyptian official said the attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights could add urgency to ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip, which would impact the Israeli-Hezbollah front.

He said mediators would use such an attack to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and thus prevent a full-scale war in the region.

“Both fronts are connected,” he said. “A ceasefire in Gaza will lead to a ceasefire with Hezbollah.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the sensitive talks.

Representatives of the United States, Egypt and Qatar will meet with Israeli officials in Rome on Sunday to work together on the latest ceasefire efforts in the Gaza Strip.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Matt Lee contributed to this report from Tokyo.