At least 10 people, including children, have been killed in a rocket attack on a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, according to an Israeli rescue official.
The Israeli military said all of those killed in the Druze village of Majdal Shams were aged between 10 and 20.
The attack on the football pitch wounded several others and came hours after an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed three members of the Hezbollah group.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its aircraft had targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah, after identifying a militant cell entering the building.
Hezbollah claimed at least four attacks, including with Katyusha rockets, in retaliation but senior media representative Mohammad Afif denied responsibility for the strike on Majdal Shams.
The scene after rockets hit a football pitch. Pic: Reuters
The IDF claims according to its “situational assessment and intelligence” Hezbollah was behind the rocket attack and Israeli chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told journalists: “Hezbollah is lying.”
An Israeli military spokesman said: “We are preparing a response against Hezbollah.”
The strike, which is the deadliest attack on an Israeli target since fighting erupted in October, raises fears of a broader escalation in the region.
Israeli Public Broadcaster Kan aired footage of some people being rushed to ambulances on stretchers.
“These were kids at a soccer field,” Beni Ben Muvchar, head of the local council, told Israeli Channel 12. “Today a red line was crossed.”
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed them in 1981.