At least 12 dead, including several children, after Hezbollah rocket strikes Israeli playground

At least 12 young people are now dead after Hezbollah fired rockets at an Israeli playground, in the deadliest attack on Israel since October 7.

At least 12 young people have been killed and many others injured in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights by a barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon on Saturday.

It came during a deadly night in the region, which also saw an Israeli strike on a school in central Gaza that killed at least 30 Palestinians and injured more than 100, the Hamas-run ministry of health reported.

Death toll in Israel reaches 12

The civilians in Israel were killed when a rocket hit a playground and a soccer field in the Arab town of Majdal Shams, according to Israel’s emergency medical service Magen David Adom.

The Israeli military said Saturday it “will prepare a response” against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah who they accused of firing the rockets from Lebanon.

“We will prepare for a response against Hezbollah … we will act,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters, adding Saturday’s rocket fire was the “deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7” when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel sparking war in Gaza.

Israeli security forces and medics treat a casualty as local residents gather at a site where a reported strike from Lebanon fell in Majdal Shams village in the Israeli-annexed Golan area on July 27, 2024. Picture: Jalaa Marey / AFP

The rocket fire came after an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon prompting the Iran-backed militant group to announce a flurry of retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan and northern Israel.

Eleven young people were initially reported dead, while a 12th victim later died, after the rocket hit on the town of Majdal Shams, where many residents retain Syrian nationality decades after the territory’s occupation in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Another 18 youths were wounded.

The Israeli army said Hezbollah fired the deadly rocket.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organisation is behind the rocket launch at a soccer field in Majdal Shams,” the army said in a statement.

Young people were killed and wounded after a rocket fired from Lebanon had hit the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Israel says. Picture: AFP

But the Iran-backed militant group denied it was responsible. “The Islamic Resistance has no connection to this incident,” it said, referring to its military wing.

The police and the army said rockets had struck multiple locations in the Golan, including Majdal Shams.

Ambulances, helicopters and mobile intensive care units were deployed to the site, the army said.

“We arrived at a football pitch and saw destruction and objects on fire. Injured people were lying on the grass,” paramedic Idan Avshalom said in a statement issued by Magen David Adom.

An AFP correspondent saw medics carrying away the wounded for treatment.

“Officers and police bomb disposal experts from the northern district police are currently securing the area and searching for additional (rocket) remnants to eliminate any further risk to the public,” the police said in a separate statement.

Local residents comfort each other as they gather at a site of a reported strike from Lebanon in Majdal Shams village. Picture: AFP.

The rocket fire came after a Lebanese security source said an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in the southern village of Kfar Kila.

Hezbollah, which has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted last October, confirmed the deaths of four of its fighters.

It said it carried out a dozen retaliatory attacks on Israeli targets, nine in the space of two hours.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted last October.

School struck in Gaza, 30 dead

Meanwhile, Hamas’ ministry of health says 30 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on Khadija school in the central Deir el-Balah area in Gaza.

The strike, which Israel said targeted “terrorists”, was at least the eighth time since July 6 a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.

With most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war started by Hamas’s October 7 attack, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday, local time.

The health ministry reported “30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded” in the strike on Khadija school.

Israel’s military said Palestinian militants were using the compound as a “hiding place”.

Further south, in the Khan Yunis city area, around 170 people have been killed “and hundreds wounded” in an Israeli operation since Monday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.

It issued the toll after the military warned of new operations in the Khan Yunis area, where troops had earlier recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed during the October 7 attack and held in Gaza since.

– With AFP