HEZBOLLAH terrorists who killed 12 children playing football have been ordered to abandon their posts ahead of Israel’s expected revenge.
The heartless Islamists blasted a pitch in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in Israel’s occupied Golan Heights on Saturday evening with a rocket strike.
Israel is now planning how to strike back and is reportedly planning for “days of fighting” inside Lebanon.
The Shia militants have evacuated positions in south and east Lebanon after Israel vowed revenge and to “hit the enemy hard”.
A source told AFP: “Hezbollah has evacuated some positions in the south and in the Bekaa valley that it thinks could be a target for Israel.”
Funerals for the Israeli children were held yesterday as the town of 11,000 in the country’s north were devastated by the attack.
Survivors reported seeing the children’s bodies lying on each other and limbs blown off.
The 12th victim was identified overnight as 11-year-old Gevara Ebraheem whose parents tragically thought he had “just disappeared” during the attack and would return.
But a local council member said the missile had likely hit Gevara directly, making identification difficult.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel and summoned a crunch meeting of his security cabinet vowing revenge on the group.
Hezbollah, who operate out of southern Lebanon, have been exchanging tit-for-tat strikes with Israel for months.
The group was back firing missiles on Monday morning with seven striking a hill.
Hezbollah has been using east Lebanon’s Bekaa valley to launch many of its rocket volleys at Israel.
David Daoud a Middle East expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the callous attack could be the spark of a larger war.
He said he didn’t think Hezbollah “necessarily intended to kill these children” but they had fired the bomb and “assumed the risk”.
He said: “Clearly Hezbollah have been trying to provoke Israel, or at least keep them occupied whilst they respond to Hamas’s October 7th massacre.
“It’s it’s a war of attrition. There’s no other way to put it, Hezbollah itself has put it as a war of attrition.
“They have divided Israel’s forces along 2 lines. They’ve kept them occupied along 2 fronts – something like 80,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes.”
Daoud said that retaliatory attacks by Israel had not stopped the tit-for-tat exchanges, and to do so would require a ground invasion.
“It could get much worse from here. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
He said Israel would need to invade Lebanon at least to the point where Hezbollah’s rockets would be out of range of the north of the country.
“This success would have to require a massive ground invasion, because that’s the only way to deal with these short these short range rockets because of their mobility.”
But Daoud thinks that Bibi doesn’t have public support for a large-scale invasion, meaning Israel will stay vulnerable to “massive, unprecedented damage” from the rockets.
Hezbollah – or the Party of God – is a Shia Muslim movement which emerged during the early 1980s with financial backing from Iran.
The group is now considered an Iranian proxy army and the group is committed to destroying Israel.
In 2001, UK ministers banned its external security organisation and seven years later, the proscription was extended to Hezbollah’s military wing.
A listing in the official register of banned groups says Hezbollah is “committed to armed resistance to the state of Israel, and aims to seize all Palestinian territories and Jerusalem from Israel”.
It added: “Its military wing supports terrorism in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.”
Brit officials have accused the Iran organisation of destabilising the Middle East and it is a proscribed group in the UK.
Any members in the UK or supporters could be jailed for up to 10 years.
“Perhaps a temporary but not long term occupation of South Lebanon,” he suggested.
As the world waits for Israel’s response, Netanyahu has promised “blood, sweat, and tears”.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz told Channel 12 after Saturday’s attack that “Hezbollah has crossed all the red lines here, and the response will reflect that”.
He warned: “We are nearing the moment in which we face an all-out war.”
But two officials said Monday Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the Middle East into all-out war, according to Reuters.
Clearly Hezbollah have been trying to provoke Israel, or at least keep them occupied whilst they respond to Hamas’s October 7th massacre
David Daoud
Israel is also preparing for the possibility of a few days of fighting, two other Israeli officials said.
“The estimation is that the response will not lead to an all-out war,” said a diplomatic source.
“That would not be in our interest at this point.”
Hezbollah denied it fired the Falaq-1 Iranian rocket saying it had “no connection” to the incident.
Adrienne Watson, US National Security Council spokesman, said on Sunday: “This attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah.
“It was their rocket, and launched from an area they control. It should be universally condemned.”
It came hours after Israel struck a Hezbollah target in Shaqra, Lebanon, killing four militants.
Hezbollah held its own funerals on Sunday with the dead fighters’ coffins draped in the green and gold colours of the movement.
The Iran-backed group has lost 383 fighters since the beginning of Hamas’ terror attack against Israel.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-Iran groups and Hezbollah-affiliated fighters have also evacuated positions in Syria.
The IDF also struck another school in Gaza on Saturday, which they say was being used by Hamas as a base for its operations, killing 30 and wounding some 100 more.
Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdullah Bouhabib called for an independent investigation into the Golan Heights strike, in an interview with Sky News.
Bouhabib said: “Any attack on Lebanon is an attack on the Lebanese.
“Most of the fighting is going to be with Hezbollah… but it will be supported by most Lebanese, not because we like war but because Israel is attacking Lebanon and we cannot accept it.”
After the rocket hit on Saturday evening, Israel said it retaliated by striking Hezbollah targets “deep inside Lebanese territory”.
Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) have been gearing up for a possible invasion by Hezbollah – and preparing to defend against one – for years.
The militant group is thought to have 30,000 to 50,000 fighters and between 120,000 and 200,000 missiles, rockets, attack and reconnaissance drones.
On Sunday Turkey bizarrely threatened to invade Israel amid the dramatic flare up in tensions between Hezbollah and the IDF.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking about a dispute involing Libya and a region called Nagorno-Karabagh, said: “Just as we entered Karabakh and Libya, we will do the same to Israel.
Erdogan has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and said: “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to Palestine.”
The Israeli military released images of the rocket reportedly used in Saturday’s attack, comparing it to an Iranian model.
An escalation in fighting between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is “extremely concerning”, Downing Street has said.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “We are deeply concerned about the situation and the risk of further escalation and destabilisation.
“I think as the PM has said before, the situation on the northern border of Israel is extremely concerning, and we’re calling on all parties to de-escalate.
“We urge both the Israeli and Lebanese governments to engage with the US-led discussions to reach a political settlement and resolve these tensions diplomatically.”
The official said he did not have an update and would not get into military movements when asked about a report that British navy ships on their way to the region may help a potential evacuation operation from Lebanon.
