Israel says 10 killed in rocket attack on occupied Golan Heights

At least 10 people have been killed and 20 others wounded in a rocket attack on a football pitch in the town of the Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli authorities said.

Israel’s military spokesman Daniel Hagari said children were among those killed and accused the Lebanese group Hezbollah of carrying out the attack on Saturday, but the group denied any involvement.

“Our intelligence is clear. Hezbollah is responsible for the killing of innocent children,” Hagari said.

“We will prepare for a response against Hezbollah … we will act,” he said.

Hezbollah swiftly denied responsibility for the attack on Saturday. The group said in a statement it “categorically denies the allegations reported by certain enemy media and various media platforms concerning the targeting of Majdal Shams”.

“The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” it said, referring to its military wing.

The Iran-aligned group has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces in areas near the Israel-Lebanon border since October 8, when Israel launched its war on Gaza.

The cross-border attacks, which Hezbollah said it launched in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid Israel’s war on Gaza, have led to fears of a larger regional conflagration.

Reporting from Qatar, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Saturday’s attack was one of the deadliest incidents since the cross-border fire began.

“Hezbollah is saying this isn’t from them, whereas the Israelis immediately said it was them,” she said, adding that neither side wants an all-out war, “but both sides have said they are prepared for it.”

The attack on the football pitch followed an Israeli attack in Lebanon that killed four fighters on Saturday.

Two security sources in Lebanon said the four fighters killed in the Israeli attack on Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon were members of different armed groups, with at least one of them belonging to Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah after identifying fighters entering the building.

Hezbollah claimed it carried out at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation for the Kfar Kila attacks.

The Golan Heights, a 1,200sq-kilometre (463sq-mile) plateau, is Syrian territory that Israel occupied in 1967 after the Six-Day War, before annexing it in 1981, a move the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned.

Many residents in the territory are Syrian Druze, some of whom have Israeli citizenship.

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