Israel Hits Lebanon in Overnight Strikes After Soccer Field Attack

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******* Hits Lebanon in Overnight Strikes After Soccer Field *******

The ******** military said on Sunday that it had conducted overnight strikes in Lebanon, hours after a rocket fired from its northern neighbor ******* at least 12 people, most of them children, in a town in the ********-controlled Golan Heights.

******* blamed Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese group that has been attacking ******* in solidarity with ******, for Saturday’s deadly rocket ******* on the Druse ***** town of Majdal Shams. The Golan Heights is a territory once held by Syria that was captured by ******* during the *****-******** war of 1967.

Hezbollah has denied it was responsible. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at a news conference on Sunday in Tokyo that there was “every indication” that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah.

The initial ******** response appeared to stop short of a major escalation, amid fears that the rocket launch would prompt all-out war. Facing domestic pressure to mount a fiercer response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of ******* is set to meet with senior government ministers on Sunday afternoon to discuss further steps.

The ******** military said its overnight strikes had chiefly targeted places in Lebanon that it had often hit in the past, mostly close to the border with ******* or surrounding the southern port of Tyre. It reported one strike in the Bekaa Valley, roughly 60 miles north of the *******-Lebanon border, where it has been striking less frequently since February.

Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported extensive damage and some casualties resulting from the overnight ******** strikes that began shortly after midnight and lasted until dawn. It was not immediately clear if the casualties were civilians or militants.

The rocket strike on Saturday, which hit children at a soccer field, was the deadliest ******** on ********-controlled territory since ******* and Hezbollah began exchanging missile and rocket ***** in October.

Some Israelis want Mr. Netanyahu to authorize a full-scale ground invasion of southern Lebanon in order to deter similar attacks. But others ***** that such a move would prompt a far more devastating response from Hezbollah, whose arsenal of weapons is considered larger and most sophisticated than almost any other nonstate actor in the region.

******** commanders are also wary of opening up a second major war while the war in Gaza is still raging. After nine months of fighting with ****** and Hezbollah, *******’s munitions stockpiles have dwindled, raising questions about how intense a battle it could ****** in Lebanon.

For now, ******** officials say that they are still open to a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah. *******’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oren Marmorstein, said in a statement on Sunday that a full-scale war could still be averted through the enforcement of a never-implemented ******* Nations resolution from 2006 that would create a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon.

Still, there were strong expectations on Sunday morning that ******* might mount a ******* response. That, analysts *****, could tip the low-level hostilities between ******* and militias led by Hezbollah into more intense conflict.

Roughly 100,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 in ******* have been displaced, with scores of schools and health centers shuttered in both countries.

More than 460 people in Lebanon have been *******, most of them militants. More than 100 were civilians, including 12 children and 21 health workers, according to the ******* Nations and Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has ******* 22 ******** soldiers and 24 civilians, according to the ******** government.

But unlike in Gaza, both sides have largely avoided attacks that cause overwhelming loss of life, which would in turn prompt their opponent to respond with overwhelming force.

The scale of the bloodshed on Saturday night has provided one of the strongest tests to that calculus since October.

“Hezbollah will pay a heavy price, which it has not paid up to now,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in an overnight statement.

U.N. officials urged ******* and Hezbollah to “exercise maximum restraint,” warning that “it could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief,” according to a ****** statement by the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the chief of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.

The ******* on Saturday set off widespread grief in the Golan Heights, where thousands of Druse ****** observed a day of mourning on Sunday, shutting shops and other workplaces. Thousands went by bus to Majdal Shams to attend the funerals of those slain.

“The worst thing that has happened to the Druse in my memory,” said Diab Shams, 21, a Druse electrical engineering student who was traveling by bus to the town. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, with tears in his eyes.

As the bus passed a ******* ******** town, scores of ******* residents could be seen gathered beside the road waving both ******** and Druse flags in a gesture of solidarity with the Druse community.

******* annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a move that was not recognized by most of the world. Decades later, President Donald J. Trump recognized ******** sovereignty there, but most countries consider it occupied territory.

Roughly 20,000 Druse ****** live in the Golan Heights, including in the town hit by the rocket; some still consider themselves Syrian, refusing ******** passports, while a ********* have taken ******** citizenship. ******* Israelis began settling the territory after 1967, and more than 20,000 now live in the area.

Reporting was contributed by Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, *******; Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; Edward Wong from Tokyo; and Euan Ward from Beirut, Lebanon.

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