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As Funerals Held for 11 Children Killed in Hezbollah Attack, Israel Weighs Retaliation
Thousands of mourners gathered in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights, on July 28, 2024 to pay their respects at the funerals of 11 of the 12 children who were killed a day earlier in a Hezbollah rocket attack. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Thousands of mourners gathered in Majdal Shams to pay their respects at the funerals of 11 of the 12 children who were killed a day earlier in a Hezbollah rocket attack.
The attack on the small Druze town in the Golan Heights — a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria — prompted sharp warnings of retaliation from Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed that Hezbollah would “pay a heavy price.”
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz stated that Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed terrorist group that wields significant military and political influence across Lebanon, has “crossed all red lines.” He added that while Israel “would pay a price,” Hezbollah would pay a much higher one.
“We are facing an all-out war,” Katz predicted.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Herzi Halevi said the attack “will result in a very, very significant reaction.”
Nevertheless, Israel’s strategic approach toward Hezbollah may not shift drastically. Some senior officials, while expressing their condolences, on Saturday indicated that the country’s “policy of containment” may continue.
Col. (res.) Dr. Barak Ben-Zur, an expert on Hezbollah, said it was incumbent on Israel to weigh all its options before retaliating. He cautioned that acting hastily in response to the magnitude of the tragedy, while emotions are high, could lead Israel into another prolonged conflict in Lebanon — an outcome that might not serve the country’s best interests militarily, diplomatically, or economically — especially while it is still fighting a war in Gaza.
Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, another Hezbollah expert and the founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center, said that while she agreed that the “scale, nature, and timing” of a campaign in Lebanon should be chosen with care, “doing nothing” wasn’t an option.
“The very, very limited attacks that we had until now in Lebanon, focused mainly just on the other side of the border and without truly damaging Hezbollah’s capability to execute rocket launches of [the type] we saw yesterday is something that should be changed,” Zehavi told The Algemeiner.
“There must be a strategy of how and when Israel is going to protect its citizens,” she added.
More than 80,000 Israelis evacuated Israel’s north in October due to constant drone, rocket, and missile fire from Hezbollah and have since been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past nine months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.
Members of the Druze community have vowed to avenge Saturday’s attack, in which more than 40 people were wounded — 17 of whom remain in critical condition. Many criticized the Netanyahu-led government for not doing more to protect northern Israeli communities amid near-daily barrages of between 100-200 rockets from neighboring Lebanon.
Ynet military correspondent Yoav Zitun cited a senior Israeli official as saying that he “estimates that there will be a very sharp response” but one that will put Israel “into a round of several days of limited combat,” during which Hezbollah will extend its reach to Haifa. More than 6,000 rockets have been fired by the Iran-backed terrorist group into northern Israel since October, but none have yet extended as far south as Haifa.
Israel has so far refrained from targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon that indirectly supports Hezbollah, such as key bridges, major highways, power plants, sea and airports. However, if a decision is made to strike such targets — as long as the casualty count is extremely low — it will serve as a strong message to the government in Beirut, Zitun noted. Such a strategy may serve to assuage the Israeli public and deter further attacks from Hezbollah.
Meanwhile reports from Lebanese media, citing American and Lebanese diplomatic sources, indicate that Israel has made the decision to conduct a broad offensive against Lebanon.
Majdal Shams is located at the foot of Mount Hermon, directly in the line of fire from the rocket launch site in Shebaa in southern Lebanon. Despite Hezbollah’s retraction of accountability and outright denial later on, when it emerged that the victims of the attack were Arab Druze children, the missile that hit Majdal Shams was the same one they claimed responsibility for firing at the Hermon region at 19:30.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
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