Hezbollah terrorists ‘abandon posts’ as Israel ‘plans for DAYS of all-out fighting’ in revenge for Golan Heights blast

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.

AP

Mourners from victims’ families weep during the funeral for two children[/caption]

The funeral procession for the 12 victims saw the close-knit town of 11,000 turn out for the tragedy

IDF soldiers gather at the pitch as medics attend to the injured on Saturday

The rocket attack hit a football pitch in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams

11 of the 12 people killed in Saturday’s 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.

GPO

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu huddles with security ministers and military top brass on Sunday night[/caption]

X

Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon in retaliation[/caption]

Medics carry someone off the pitch on a stretcher

“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.

“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.

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.

Rex

Wreaths have been laid at the football pitch where the children were killed[/caption]

Getty

Mourners attend a funeral for ten of the victims[/caption]

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.

AP

Mourners carry the coffin of a Hezbollah fighter who was killed with three other fighters on Saturday by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon[/caption]

Israel Defense Forces

An image released by the IDF of the missile they believe hit Majdal Shams[/caption]

This is the missile Israel believes was shot at the football field

Rex

Netanyahu visits troops in Rafah[/caption]