JERUSALEM — Tensions were high on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border Monday as Israeli leaders vowed to deliver a significant military blow against the armed group Hezbollah in response to a deadly rocket attack over the weekend.
The attack Saturday killed 12 children and teenagers in the Druse Arab village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia that dominates southern Lebanon and that has been firing rockets into Israel for months, denied responsibility for the strike. But Israel and the United States blamed the group, saying it was Hezbollah’s rocket that had been fired from territory it controls.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the site of the attack Monday, said, “Our response is coming, and it will be severe.” Local residents heckled Netanyahu, telling him they had no security and chanting, “Murderer! Murderer!,” videos posted on social media showed.
Netanyahu’s visit to Majdal Shams came the morning after Israeli Cabinet ministers authorized him and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, to determine the nature and timing of the military response. The strike and Israel’s expected counterattack have raised fears that nearly 10 months of armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could spiral into an all-out war.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, anti-tank missiles and drones into Israel in solidarity with Hamas after that group, which is also backed by Iran, led the deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah have since fired thousands of missiles across the border, wrecking towns, killing hundreds, displacing tens of thousands on both sides of the lines and leading each to threaten the other with a ground invasion. The strike on Majdal Shams was the deadliest attack on civilians in Israeli-controlled territory since the Hamas assault in October.
Israeli analysts said Hezbollah was most likely aiming at a nearby army base on Mount Hermon and did not intentionally target the village. But the group’s use of inaccurate rockets led to the kind of civilian bloodshed that could ignite a full-blown war, they said, even as Israel continues to wage a devastating military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Since the rocket strike on Majdal Shams, Western diplomats have been scrambling to try to defuse tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking by phone with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, reaffirmed the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security, according to a State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller.
But Blinken also emphasized “the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict and discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution” with Hezbollah, Miller said.
John Kirby, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, expressed confidence Monday that a wider war between Israel and Hezbollah could be avoided.
“Israel has a right to defend itself — no nation should have to live with this kind of threat,” he told reporters in Washington. At the same time, Kirby said, “we believe that there is still time and space for a diplomatic solution.” He added, “Nobody wants a broader war, and I’m confident we’ll be able to avoid such an outcome.”
Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Israel needed to respond to meet the expectations of the minority Druse community and Israeli public opinion in general to not show weakness to the enemy.
The Israeli response would most likely be carefully focused in the hope of preventing a prolonged escalation, Yaari added. Options for a response could include targeting more senior Hezbollah figures or some of the group’s more valuable military assets.
One problem, he said, was that Hezbollah had already gone into “emergency mode” and had evacuated facilities that it considered vulnerable in Lebanon and Syria.
There have been continued attacks across the border since the strike on Majdal Shams, but they seem to have fallen within the limits of the tit-for-tat strikes of the past few months. The Israeli military said overnight that its aerial defense systems had intercepted a pilotless aircraft that crossed from Lebanon into northwestern Israel.
On Monday morning, a drone strike on a vehicle in southern Lebanon killed two people and injured three others, including a child, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. At least two Lebanese towns were also hit overnight by Israeli airstrikes, the agency reported.
The Israeli military said in a statement that approximately 20 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon on Monday morning and had fallen in an open area in northern Israel, causing no injuries. Within minutes of those launches, the military said, its air force had struck the launcher in southern Lebanon.
Israeli aircraft also hit additional Hezbollah targets during the day, the statement added, eliminating what the military described as a Hezbollah cell.
Many in Lebanon were relieved Monday that there had been no major Israeli retaliation overnight. Children made their way to school. Bakeries fired up their ovens, and roads were clogged with traffic as people went about their daily commutes.
“It was cool to wake up and find that I was alive,” said Mohamed Awada, 52, a taxi driver and father of two who lives in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. The area is controlled by Hezbollah, and many Lebanese fear it could be targeted in any Israeli response.
Embassies in Lebanon reissued warnings against travel to the country and urged foreign citizens to leave while flights were still available.
Rena Bitter, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the bureau of consular affairs, described a “complex and quickly changing situation” in a video released by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Monday.
Bitter said Americans in Lebanon “should be prepared to shelter in place for long periods” if commercial flights were halted. “We recommend that U.S. citizens develop a crisis plan of action and leave before a crisis begins,” she said.
Some airlines, including the Lufthansa Group, suspended or adjusted their flight schedules in Lebanon amid the heightened tensions. Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s national carrier, cited “insurance risks” as a reason for rescheduling overnight flights arriving in Beirut, according to a statement.
Adding to tensions in the region, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday raised the possibility that his country’s forces could enter Israel in response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
“We should be very strong so that Israel cannot do this stuff to Palestine,” Erdogan said while addressing members of his governing Justice and Development Party in the Black Sea city of Rize, his ancestral hometown.
“Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we can do similar to them,” he added, referring to Turkish support for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia last year and his country’s military intervention in Libya. “There is no reason not to do it,” he continued. “We must be strong to take these steps.”
It was unclear whether his comments were intended to appeal to his political base.
Throughout the war in Gaza, Erdogan has expressed support for Hamas, referring to it as “an organization of liberation” while harshly criticizing Israel. He has compared Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and has called him a “psychopath” and a “vampire.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that Erdogan was following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi ruler who was executed in 2006.
Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel broke down in the early months of the war, and in May, Turkey announced that it was halting trade with Israel.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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