The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had conducted overnight strikes in Lebanon, hours after a rocket fired from its northern neighbor killed at least 12 people, most of them children, in a town in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Israel blamed Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese group that has been attacking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, for Saturday’s deadly rocket attack on the Druse Arab town of Majdal Shams. The Golan Heights is a territory once held by Syria that was captured by Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.
Hezbollah has denied it was responsible. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at a news conference on Sunday in Tokyo that there was “every indication” that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah.
The initial Israeli response appeared to stop short of a major escalation, amid fears that the rocket launch would prompt all-out war. Facing domestic pressure to mount a fiercer response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is set to meet with senior government ministers on Sunday afternoon to discuss further steps.
The Israeli military said its overnight strikes had chiefly targeted places in Lebanon that it had often hit in the past, mostly close to the border with Israel or surrounding the southern port of Tyre. It reported one strike in the Bekaa Valley, roughly 60 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border, where it has been striking less frequently since February.
Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported extensive damage and some casualties resulting from the overnight Israeli strikes that began shortly after midnight and lasted until dawn. It was not immediately clear if the casualties were civilians or militants.
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