Washington blames Hezbollah for fatal rocket strike; security cabinet mulls reprisal

The White House on Sunday declared Hezbollah responsible for a deadly rocket attack on Saturday that killed 12 children in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the security cabinet to discuss Israel’s reaction to the attack.

“It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement, adding that the Hezbollah attack should be “universally condemned.”

“Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah,” she noted, adding that the Iran-backed terror group “started firing at Israel on October 8, claiming solidarity with Hamas, another terror organization in Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance.'”

As thousands of residents of the northern Druze village gathered for the funerals of 10 of the 12 children believed to have been killed in the rocket strike, 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 also published the flight path of the heavy rocket, launched from the Chebaa area in southern Lebanon.

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

“The United States is also working on a diplomatic solution along the Blue Line that will end all attacks once and for all, and allow citizens on both sides of the border to safely return to their homes,” the White House spokesman said.

Earlier on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he did not want to see an escalation on Israel’s northern border and also reiterated Washington’s support for Jerusalem.

“I emphasize (Israel’s) right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that,” Blinken said during a news conference in Tokyo. “But we also don’t want to see the conflict escalate. We don’t want to see it spread.”

“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.

In a call with Netanyahu on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack on Majdal Shams “in the strongest terms,” according to the French readout.

Macron emphasized that “France is fully committed to doing everything possible to avoid a new escalation in the region by sending messages to all parties to the conflict,” without mentioning Hezbollah.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy also condemned the rocket strike and said he was concerned it would spark further violence.

“The UK condemns the strike in Golan Heights that has tragically claimed at least 12 lives,” he said in a statement on the social media platform X. “We are deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation and destabilization. We have been clear Hezbollah must cease their attacks.”

Egypt, a mediator in ongoing efforts to secure a hostage-ceasefire deal in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, also warned of the dangers of opening a new war front with Lebanon.

Cairo stressed the importance of supporting Lebanon and “sparing it the scourge of war,” in a statement from Egypt’s foreign ministry.

Netanyahu landed in Israel in the middle of the day on Sunday having moved up his return flight from the US in the wake of Saturday’s deadly strike, and convened the security cabinet to decide on Israel’s response to the terror attack.

‘We’ll have to wait and see’

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.

Meanwhile, a security official told the Israel Hayom daily that, though there may be several days of significant escalation, Israel is not interested in a war against Hezbollah right now. Rather, the goal of a retaliatory strike would be to effect a strategic change in the north.

Officials also said they believe that Israel’s response would affect the ongoing Gaza hostage talks, though they were not sure of the direction — whether it would spur Hezbollah and Iran to push Hamas into a deal, or the opposite, according to the Israel Hayom report.

Also Sunday, Channel 12 news reported that Israel was considering various alternatives, all of which could hurt Hezbollah more than Israel has done thus far, but which could also affect other fronts. The network predicted that the next few days could be significant and intense.

The network cited a security source as saying that the need to exact a price from Hezbollah currently trumps the fear of all-out war and that all top security and political officials agree on the need to strike back hard.

The army is ready “at the push of a button,” according to the unsourced report, adding that Jerusalem was considering striking non-Hezbollah strategic targets in Lebanon.

The Channel 12 report added that some officials in the ongoing discussions, such as far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, favor full-on war, though Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and others disagree.

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.”

But he also criticized the government, which he left last month, for what he called the lack of a “full strategic plan of action” and said that Netanyahu “can’t continue playing for time.”

Gantz reiterated his call for the government to close a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas, which he said would also calm the northern front and enable Israel to focus on a regional response to the threat emanating from Iran.

Hezbollah abandons positions, Beirut cancels flights

In Lebanon, meanwhile, Hezbollah evacuated positions in south and east Lebanon, in light of threats of an Israeli reprisal, according to a source close to the group.

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.

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.

Hezbollah is also deployed in Syria, where for years it has been fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war.

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 in a statement that it had rescheduled several flights on Sunday and Monday, citing “technical reasons related to the distribution of (aircraft) insurance risks.”

“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.

MEA said in a statement that six flights incoming to Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport overnight from London, Copenhagen, and four other cities in the Middle East would be delayed so that they would instead take off on Monday morning.

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

Lazar Berman and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.