The Israeli army said on Tuesday, July 30, it had struck overnight approximately 10 Hezbollah targets in seven different areas of southern Lebanon and killed one fighter from the Lebanese armed group. The army also “struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility, terror infrastructure sites, military structures, and a launcher in southern Lebanon,” the army said.
Druze residents of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights distanced themselves Tuesday from Israeli threats to retaliate against Lebanon’s Hezbollah group for a deadly rocket strike on a Druze Arab town in the territory. Most of Majdal Shams’s around 11,000 residents still identify as Syrian more than half a century after Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.
On a visit to the town on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would deliver a “severe response” to the strike, which killed 12 children aged between 10 and 16 as they played football on Saturday.
The Israeli military has said that the rocket which hit Majdal Shams was fired by Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which has traded regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began last October, has denied responsibility for the strike, though it claimed multiple attacks on Israeli military positions the same day.