Israeli ministers approve Netanyahu’s response to Golan attack

Israel’s security cabinet has authorized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister to decide the timing and manner of retaliation for a deadly rocket attack that Israel and the United States say was carried out by the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Ministers met for an emergency meeting following the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday evening, in which 12 children and young people from the Druze community were killed. Hezbollah denies responsibility for the attack.

It was the deadliest cross-border incident in months of gunfire between the two sides.

The attack has heightened fears that the previously relatively limited hostilities could escalate into open war.

Western governments are urging Israel to exercise restraint in its response.

The White House said it had been in “ongoing discussions with its Israeli and Lebanese counterparts” since the horrific attack on the playing field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams.

It said they were also working on “a diplomatic solution along the Blue Line (the unofficial border between Israel and Lebanon) that will end all attacks once and for all.”

On Monday morning, two people were killed in an Israeli drone strike outside the Lebanese town of Shaqra, about 6.5 kilometers from the Israeli border, Lebanese state media reported. Hezbollah said the dead were two of its fighters. Israel has not commented on the report.

Meanwhile, Air France has become the latest airline to suspend its flights to and from Beirut as fears of Israeli retaliation grow. Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings have also suspended their flights.

In Majdal Shams, the funerals of the young victims took place on Sunday amid scenes of raw grief. Thousands of people gathered as the coffins, draped in white cloths, were carried through the town.

The attack is the most devastating for the Druze, who have lived in the Golan Heights for centuries. They are part of an Arabic-speaking ethnic and religious group native to Lebanon, Syria, the Golan Heights and northern Israel.

Residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have been under Israeli rule since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 war, although many have maintained their loyalty to Syria. The rocky plateau is home to about 21,000 people, of whom about 20 percent have taken Israeli citizenship.

The attack on Majdal Shams sparked outrage throughout Israel and among the Druze community, of which about 110,000 live in Israel.

Netanyahu cut short his visit to the United States to return to Israel after the attack, and met with defense officials before convening the security cabinet on Sunday.

After the meeting, which lasted several hours, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a brief statement saying only that “the members of the Cabinet had authorized the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense to decide on the manner and timing of the response to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”

In a previous condolence meeting with the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, Sheikh Muafak Tarif, Netanyahu had stated that Hezbollah would “pay a high price for this, which it has not yet paid.”

Hezbollah vehemently denied responsibility for the attack and reportedly blamed a failed Israeli interceptor missile for the bloodshed.

In a statement on Sunday, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) knew “exactly where the rocket was fired from.”

General Halevi identified the rocket as an unguided surface-to-surface rocket of Iranian design, the Falaq, with a 53 kg warhead. “This is a Hezbollah rocket. And anyone who fires such a rocket into a built-up area wants to kill civilians, wants to kill children,” he said.

Previously sporadic fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated since Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli positions a day after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7. Hezbollah says it is acting in support of the Palestinians.