Ministers authorize Netanyahu, Gallant to order retaliation for deadly Golan strike

Israeli ministers authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief Sunday to decide on the “manner and timing” of a response to a rocket strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teens, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Israel has vowed retaliation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israeli jets hit targets in southern Lebanon during the day on Sunday and reportedly shelled sites there just after midnight Monday, as Lebanon braced for Israel’s expected reprisal and diplomats scrambled to keep the conflict from snowballing.

Members of the Druze community held funerals Sunday for 11 of the 12 young victims of the strike on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams, amid fury and grief over the tragedy, which occurred just steps from a bomb shelter, and already sky-high tensions sparked by 10 months of nearly daily rocket attacks on northern Israel and tit-for-tat strikes in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met Sunday night with members of the high-level security cabinet to discuss Israel’s response to the Saturday attack.

According to the Prime Minister’s office, during the four-hour meeting, lawmakers voted to give Netanyahu and Gallant authority to decide on the scale and timing of Israel’s response to yesterday’s deadly rocket attack in the Golan.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, hardliners who have pushed to ratchet up the severity of reprisal actions, both abstained from the vote, according to Yedioth Ahronoth.

During the summit, ministers were all given ample time to speak after many of them complained about the cursory manner in which a strike on Yemen was approved a week earlier, the news outlet reported

Ministers also discussed ongoing hostage talks with the Hamas terror group, which are expected to be affected by Israel’s response, but another meeting on that subject is still planned, Yedioth reported.

Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had launched a Falaq rocket at an IDF base near Majdal Shams, though since reports emerged of civilian casualties in the northern town, the terror group has changed course and denied involvement.

But Israel said the rocket was an Iranian-made missile fired from an area of southern Lebanon, placing the blame squarely on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

“The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal,” Israel’s foreign ministry said.

As thousands of residents of Majdal Shams gathered for the funerals of 10 of the 12 children killed in the rocket strike Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces released evidence showing shrapnel found at the soccer field matching an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket, which in Lebanon is exclusively used by Hezbollah.

The Iranian-made Falaq-1 has a 50-kilogram warhead and a range of 10 kilometers, according to the IDF.

The IDF published the flight path of the heavy rocket, showing it was launched from the Chebaa area in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu, who had been in the US for meetings with US President Joe Biden, US Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, landed in Israel in the middle of the day on Sunday having moved up his return flight in the wake of Saturday’s deadly strike, and convened the security cabinet to decide on Israel’s response to the terror attack.

Also returning early to Israel was Mossad Chief David Barnea, who had been in Rome for talks but attended the security cabinet meeting. Also there was National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and others.

Various officials and reports on Sunday suggested the government was expected to approve a major retaliation. One Israeli official told the Haaretz newspaper that Hezbollah’s response to such retaliation in Lebanon would determine the extent of escalation in the north.

“We will have to wait and see,” said the official, shortly after the security cabinet convened.

Western diplomats told the Hebrew daily that there was a significant effort underway to head off an Israeli reaction that would spark a full-blown war with Lebanon.

The US said Washington has been in discussions with Israeli and Lebanese counterparts since Saturday’s “horrific” attack and that it was working on a diplomatic solution.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington did not want further escalation of the conflict, which has seen daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along the border.

“It’s so important that we help defuse that conflict, not only prevent it from escalating, prevent it from spreading, but to defuse it because you have so many people in both countries, in both Israel and Lebanon, who’ve been displaced from their homes,” Blinken said.

The White House has also blamed Hezbollah for the Majdal Shams strike. “This attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah. It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control,” it said in a statement.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, said through her national security adviser that her “support for Israel’s security is ironclad.”

Britain also expressed concern at further escalation while Egypt said the attack could spill “into a comprehensive regional war.”

On the ground, thousands of people gathered for funerals in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights.

Members of the Druze faith, which is related to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, make up more than half the 40,000-strong population of the Golan Heights. Large crowds of mourners, many in traditional high white and red Druze headwear, surrounded the caskets as they were carried through the village.

“A heavy tragedy, a dark day has come to Majdal Shams,” said Dolan Abu Saleh, head of the Majdal Shams local council, in comments broadcast on Israeli television.

Both sides have appeared to be avoiding an escalation that could lead to all-out war, potentially dragging in other powers including the United States and Iran, but Saturday’s strike threatened to tip the standoff into a more dangerous phase. United Nations officials urged maximum restraint from both sides, warning that escalation could “engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief.”

Lebanon has asked the US to urge restraint by Israel, Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, told Reuters. Bou Habib said the US had asked Lebanon’s government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.

Two security sources in Lebanon told Reuters that Hezbollah was on high alert and had cleared some key sites in both Lebanon’s south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in case of an Israeli attack.

Hezbollah has a strong presence in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria, and in south Lebanon, where it has been attacking Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, saying it is doing so to support Gaza during the war there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said pro-Iran groups and Hezbollah-affiliated fighters had “evacuated their positions” south of the capital and in the Damascus countryside on Sunday, as well as in parts of the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights, in anticipation of “potential Israeli airstrikes.”

Hezbollah had already abandoned positions in Syria in early June after Israeli raids, according to the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground.

Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines said it was delaying the arrival of some flights from Sunday night to Monday morning, without stating why. It later delayed more flights both arriving in Beirut and taking off from there, saying the moves were “due to technical reasons related to the distribution of insurance risks for aircraft between Lebanon and other destinations.”

Beirut Rafic Hariri Airport, Lebanon’s only international facility, was hit early in the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

“We’re not afraid that the airport will be hit, nor do we have any information in that regard. If we were scared, we wouldn’t have left any flights (operating),” MEA chairman Mohamad El-Hout told local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

Former war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, head of the centrist now-opposition National Union party, said on Sunday that Israel must react to the Majdal Shams attack extensively, stressing that this could include “hitting Lebanon hard and also tearing Lebanon apart.”

Speaking to Channel 12 news, Gantz added: “The IDF is ready. I assume that is what we will see.”

Hezbollah terrorists have been firing rockets into northern Israel since October 8, drawing Israeli reprisal attacks and threatening to widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas beyond Gaza’s borders.

So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 24 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 381 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some in Syria. In Lebanon, another 68 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.

Lazar Berman and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.