A rocket from Lebanon struck a soccer field on Saturday in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing at least 10 people, including some youths, according to an Israeli emergency rescue service and the Israeli military.
The rescue service, Magen David Adom, said that in addition to the 10 dead, 19 people had been wounded, some of them seriously, in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the heights.
Idan Avshalom, a paramedic with Magen David Adom, said the ages of those killed or wounded ranged from 10 and 20 years old, and he described a “gruesome” scene at the soccer field, with bodies on the ground and fires burning.
“We immediately began triage; several casualties were evacuated to local clinics,” said Mr. Avshalom.
While Israel has been fighting a war with Hamas in the south, in Gaza, for almost 10 months, it has also traded fire on a second front, in the north, with the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack on Saturday.
The Israeli military said that its assessment on the ground and intelligence showed that Hezbollah had launched the rocket.
The Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas has occasionally attacked Israel from Lebanese soil since it launched the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that set off the war in Gaza. But Israel and Lebanon have so far carefully avoided escalating the situation on the northern front, even though one deadly miscalculation risks igniting a broader war.
In a Facebook post, the Majdal Shams local council said “a dark day” had befallen the village and called on people to stay in their homes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was holding an emergency security meeting after the attack, according to a statement from his office. He was still in the United States, where he has been for the past few days for meetings with President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, who is running for president again.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Euan Ward contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.