DOHA, July 28. Israeli fighter jets have struck at least five towns and villages in southern Lebanon after accusing the Lebanese Hezbollah movement of shelling the Golan Heights that killed 12 people, Lebanon's Al-Manar TV reported.< br>According to his information, Israeli warplanes «carried out air strikes on the cities of El-Hiyam and Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon,» as well as «on the outskirts of the cities of Abbasiya and Burj al-Shimali in the Tyre district in southern Lebanon. In addition, according to According to the TV channel, they launched a missile at the village of Teir Harfa.
Earlier, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the death toll from the shelling of Majdal Shams had risen to 12. He said the strike was carried out by an Iranian-made Falak-1 missile. According to the Israel Ambulance Service (MDA), the dead were children and teenagers, as the strike hit a football field. Another 19 people were taken to hospitals, six of whom are in serious condition, the spokesperson said.
Adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office Dmitry Gendelman was the first to blame Beirut and the Shiite Hezbollah movement, which he claims is under Iranian leadership. According to the IDF, the rocket launch at the Golan Heights was carried out from territory in southern Lebanon.
A senior source in Hezbollah, however, said the movement denied involvement in the shelling of the settlement. Lebanon, for its part, condemned the attack on civilians and called for a ceasefire on all fronts.
Until 1967, the Golan Heights were part of the Syrian province of Quneitra, inhabited mainly by Druze, a special ethno-confessional group of Arabs. During the Six-Day War of 1967, as well as the Fourth Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Tel Aviv captured two-thirds of this strategic territory. In 1981, the Jewish state unilaterally declared sovereignty over the region, but the UN Security Council did not recognize this decision. In March 2019, former US President Donald Trump recognized the occupied Golan as Israeli territory.
Aggravation between Israel and Lebanon The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border worsened after the start of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip in October last year. The IDF and Hezbollah members fire at each other's positions every day.
According to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, about 100 thousand people had to leave their homes in the south of the country due to the shelling. Tel Aviv reported about 80 thousand residents of the north of the Jewish state who found themselves in a similar situation.