Israeli drones struck a remote road in southern Lebanon, underscoring tensions as Israeli officials considered their response to the rocket strike on the occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children.
Two Israeli drone strikes killed two people, according to Lebanon’s state news agency, as well as wounding three others on the roads between the towns of Chaqra and Meiss El Jabal, close to the de-facto border between Israel and Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it shot down a drone sent from Lebanese territory in the early hours of the morning, intercepting the aircraft after it crossed into Israeli territory.
Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have risen in recent days after the rocket strike on the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1981, which killed 12 children as they played football on Saturday.
Israeli and US officials blamed Hezbollah for the missile strike, which the Lebanese militant group has vehemently denied. The IDF shared analysis of shrapnel the day after the strike which it said showed the drone was Iranian-made.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, flew back early from a trip to the US and spent Sunday in discussion with military security officials. He later convened his security cabinet for several hours to discuss how to respond to the strike on Majdal Shams, amid pressure from the US and France to avoid a large-scale attack that risks sparking a regional war.
Netanyahu’s office said after the meeting that ministers had authorised him and the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, “to decide on the manner and timing,” of Israel’s response to the strike.
A senior Israeli defence official told Reuters that Israel wants to hurt Hezbollah, but does not wish to drag the region into an all-out war. Two other officials said the country was preparing for the possibility of a few days of fighting.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Israeli officials as saying they expect the response to be “limited but significant”, amid questions about how far beyond the bounds of targets and areas struck by Israel in recent months the response might be.
The US news website Axios, citing one Israeli official and one US official, said the White House had cautioned Israel that should it choose to hit areas of the Lebanese capital, Beirut,“the situation would likely spiral out of control”.
“The Majdal Shams strike constituted the type of incident that many experts have long assessed might tip the balance from relatively limited Israel-Hezbollah cross-border exchanges to devastating all-out conflict,” said security analysts at the New York-based Soufan Group.
Hezbollah, it added, probably denied responsibility for the strike on Majdal Shams because of the high casualties, the location in an area internationally recognised to be Syrian land occupied by Israel, and the Druze Arab identity of the victims. The Druze are a sect who live in the Golan Heights, parts of southern Syria and into Lebanon.
The security analysts added: “The most pressing task for US. officials appeared to be delaying any Israeli retaliation to allow time for diplomacy to achieve de-escalation.”
After a meetings of the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan, India and the US, the group known as the Quad nations issued a statement in support of ceasefire talks from Tokyo.
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“We underscore the need to prevent the conflict from escalating and spilling over in the region,” the group said.
Talks in Rome to secure a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, which Hezbollah has said would prompt them to also halt attacks, appeared to disappoint the families of more than 100 Israeli and dual-national hostages held by Hamas in the territory.
Danny Elgarat, whose brother is being held hostage, told Israeli army radio that he and other families of captives had lost hope after Netanyahu’s recent speech to the US Congress.
“Everything that happened last week in Washington didn’t change a thing. We had had hope that the big hullabaloo surrounding the speech in Congress would produce something,” he said.
Elgarat blamed Netanyahu’s intransigence for the lack of a deal, implying that a ceasefire was unlikely while the Israeli prime minister remained in office.
“There isn’t going to be a deal. Only if Benjamin Netanyahu moves is there any chance that something might work out and for there to be a deal,” he said.