Airlines suspended flights to Lebanon on Monday as diplomatic efforts were under way to contain soaring tensions between Hezbollah and Israel after deadly rocket fire in the annexed Golan Heights.
Mourners gathered in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams for the funeral of 11-year-old Guevara Ibrahim, the last of 12 victims, all aged 10 to 16, of the rocket that hit a football pitch in the Druze Arab community on Saturday.
Israel and the US have blamed the attack on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has traded near daily fire with Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza war in early October.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said a flurry of diplomatic activity had sought to contain the anticipated Israeli response, after Defence Minister Yoav Gallant threatened to “hit the enemy hard”.
“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way ... These are the assurances we’ve received,” Bou Habib said.
The US, France and others were trying to contain the escalation, he added, while Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had also said that “talks are ongoing with international, European and Arab sides to protect Lebanon and ward off dangers”.
Several airlines including Lufthansa, Air France and Transavia announced on Monday the suspension of their Beirut lines.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the Majdal Shams rocket attack, although the group claimed multiple strikes on Israeli military positions that day.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the site of the rocket strike on Monday, has said “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price”.
He convened on Sunday his security cabinet, whose members “authorised the prime minister and the defence minister to decide on the manner and timing of the response”, Netanyahu’s office said without elaborating.
Hezbollah has evacuated some positions in south and east Lebanon, a source close to the group said.
On Monday, Hezbollah said it had launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli military site following the “assassination” of two of its fighters.
A source close to the group said the pair were killed in an air raid on Lebanon’s southern village of Mais al-Jabal. The cross-border violence has so far killed at least 529 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 104 civilians. On the Israeli side, 24 civilians and 22 soldiers have been killed, according to the military.
Hezbollah is an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. The Lebanese group has said its attacks are in support of Hamas, and they would stop if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
Months of efforts have failed to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal, though mediators and Israeli negotiators met on Sunday in Rome to discuss the latest proposal.
In the besieged Palestinian territory, the Israeli military said its forces were “continuing precise, intelligence-based operational activity in the Rafah area” and in nearby Khan Yunis, where troops had “eliminated dozens of terrorists”.
Cape Times