Israel Readies Response to Hezbollah’s Soccer Field Attack

Mourners carry coffins, during the funeral of children who were killed at a soccer pitch by a rocket Israel says was fired from Lebanon, in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, July 28, 2024. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

Israel’s leaders face a military crossroads after a Hezbollah rocket attack on July 27 killed 12 Israeli children.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel on July 28 after his U.S. trip, where he addressed Congress and spoke separately with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump. 

Late on July 28, Israel’s cabinet authorized Mr. Netanyahu’s government to decide on the “manner and timing” of a response to the rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck seven targets in Lebanon on July 27, most of them close to the border and not representing an escalation.

On July 29, though, Israel faced a divisive distraction. With growing concern over the alleged mistreatment of Hamas prisoners at the Sde Teiman base near the Gaza border, Israeli military police went there to arrest nine reserve soldiers facing charges of abuse. 

But they were met by an angry crowd of protesters, who scuffled with soldiers and pushed their way onto the base in support of the reservists being arrested.  

Mr. Netanyahu condemned the protesters’ incursion onto the base and called for calm. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi also condemned it.

But National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and other cabinet members defended the soldiers, saying the investigation was an insult to their service.

Right-wing protesters wave Israeli flags outside Sde Teiman detention facility after Israeli Military Police arrived at the site as part of an investigation into suspected abuse of a Palestinian detainee, near Beersheba in southern Israel, July 29, 2024. (Jill Gralow/Reuters)

The issue creates another headache for the prime minister, who is dependent on far-right support for his governing coalition while facing growing demands from Israel’s liberal opposition for elections. 

Hezbollah Rocket Strike 

The children and young adults, all between the ages of 10 and 20, were playing on a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, near the Syrian border and 7 miles south of the Lebanese border. A Hezbollah rocket struck it on July 27 just before sunset. Twelve young people were killed, and another 20 were wounded. 

A mass memorial was held at the soccer field on July 28, which residents said was the only place in town large enough to hold the thousands of people expected to come. Many of the children were buried later that day after a mass funeral. 

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, and most of the population is now Jewish. President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s annexation of the territory, now one of the nation’s principal agricultural and wine-producing areas, in 2019, but it has not received other international recognition.

The Druze are a minority group; their religion is an offshoot of Islam but is considered distinct from it. They are Israeli citizens and enjoy full rights, serving in Israel’s military and police. 

Expectations are high that Israel will go beyond the retaliatory strikes that have been its typical response to Hezbollah’s rocketing nearly every day into northern Israel. Airlines were canceling or delaying flights to and from Beirut airport on July 29. Some nations advised their nationals to leave Lebanon.

People look at flight information boards at the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, in Beirut, Lebanon, July 28, 2024. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

Mr. Netanyahu vowed “severe” retaliation during a July 29 visit to the soccer field in Majdal Shams.

“These children are our children; they are children of all of us,” he said as officials laid a wreath at the field. “The state of Israel will not and cannot overlook this.”

US Against Escalation

John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, said in a press call on July 29 that “Nobody wants a broader war. And I’m confident that we'll be able to avoid such an outcome.” 

He expressed sympathy for the victims and Israel generally. “Israel has a right to defend itself. No nation should have to live with this kind of threat.” 

But the United States, he said, opposes escalation. “We don’t want to see a second front opened up there in the north.” 

The United States is pressing Israel to avoid attacks on Beirut or Lebanon’s major civil infrastructure, which many Israeli military experts think any Israeli offensive against Hezbollah would entail.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, though, told his counterpart, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on July 29 that Hezbollah would be held responsible for the attack. 

“Minister Gallant noted that the attack on Saturday is a significant escalation, and that Iranian proxy Hezbollah will be held responsible,” his office said. 

The IDF identified the rocket as an Iranian-made Falaq-1 and said Hezbollah was the only terror organization that had them in its arsenal. Hezbollah said the rocket was aimed at an Israeli military headquarters.

The rocket’s warhead carries 50 kilograms, more than 100 pounds, of explosives. 

But Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesperson, said Hezbollah’s statement was a “lie,” and that the terror group had targeted the children. “This attack shows the true face of Hezbollah, a terrorist org that targets and murders children playing soccer on a Saturday evening.” 

IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari gives a statement to the media on Jan. 2, 2024. (Israeli Army via Reuters/Screenshot via NTD)

Mr. Ben Gvir and another coalition partner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, abstained from the vote, giving Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant the authority to choose Israel’s response. That may mean that the leaders are opting for a response short of all-out war.

Elliot Chodoff, a major in the IDF reserves and military analyst, told The Epoch Times on July 29 that Israel really had only two choices: go to war with Hezbollah, or continue what he called “a failed strategy of tit for tat”—that means a retaliatory strike without escalation to signal Israel’s displeasure, “as if killing a dozen children is not an escalation.” 

He called them “two bad options.”

Hezbollah, he said, has been at war since it was formed. The idea of signaling and then negotiating with them ignores that they’re sworn to Israel’s destruction.

The United States’ position, he said, has been typical. 

“On the one hand, saying Israel has a right to defend itself, and we support Israel’s right to defend itself. But we don’t support Israel’s right to defend itself in any effective way. We would like to see Israel do some sort of cosmetic, superficial response to show that it’s in the game, but we don’t want it to respond in a way that’s going to cause escalation here.”

The United States isn’t recognizing that the killing of the children is itself an escalation, he said. Hezbollah has stepped up its rocket attacks into populated areas recently, making an event of this sort more likely. If Israeli response goes beyond “a slap on the wrist,” Mr. Chodoff said, Israel is deemed to have escalated the conflict. 

Israel can handle a two-front war, he said, and manage the threat of Iran, which made and supplied the missile that killed the children. “We’ve been at war with Iran for many, many years.” Whether Iran would join in if Israel attacks Hezbollah, he said, “is an open question.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.