
The ongoing war in Gaza stands on the cusp of spilling into neighbouring Lebanon as Israel said it carriedout a series of retaliatory strikes inside the country, a day after a fatal attack on annexed Golan Heights killed 12 children and teens on Saturday (Jul 27).
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday it bombed Hezbollah's weapons depots and infrastructure in eastern Lebanon, in Shabriha and Burj el-Shemali near the southern city of Tyre, and the villages of Kafr Lila or Kfar Kila, Rab el-Thalathine, Khiam and Tayr Harfa.
Earlier, the Israeli foreign ministry said the Lebanon-based militant group had crossed its "red line" by staging the attack.
“Saturday’s massacre constitutes the crossing of all red lines by Hezbollah. This is not an army fighting another army, rather it is a terrorist organisation deliberately shooting at civilians,” the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah on Saturday firmly denied its involvement in the attack.
In a statement, Hezbollah said, "The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident, and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard."
Meanwhile, neighbours Iran and Syria reacted to the developments in Golan Heights on Sunday and blamed the Jewish nation for distracting the public from the conflict in Gaza.
“After 10 months of mass killing in the Gaza Strip and mass murder of Palestinian children and women, the apartheid Israeli regime is trying to distract public opinion and global attention from its wide-ranging crimes in Palestine using a fabricated scenario,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Syria said Israel itself had orchestrated this attack to "fabricate pretexts to expand the scope of its aggression."
Israel committed a "heinous crime...with the intention of escalating the situation in the region," the Syrian foreign ministry said.
“Our people in the occupied Syrian Golan, who have refused for decades of Israeli occupation to give up their Syrian Arab identity, will not be fooled by the occupation’s lies and false accusations that the Lebanese national resistance bombed Majdal Shams," it further stated.
(With inputs from agencies)