Israel urged to show restraint

The international community has urged Israel not to escalate tensions in the Middle East after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was authorized to decide how the country should respond to a rocket strike that killed 12 youngsters in the annexed Golan Heights.

Israeli officials and Lebanon-based Hezbollah group have accused each other of launching the fatal attack on Saturday at a soccer field in the predominantly Druze community in Majdal Shams.

The tragedy has prompted Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib to demand an international investigation into the incident.

On Sunday, Israel's security cabinet authorized Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to decide on the manner and timing of a response to the strike.

Visiting the site of the deadly attack on Monday, Netanyahu vowed Israel would deliver a "severe response" to the rocket fire.

"These children are our children... The State of Israel will not, and cannot, let this pass. Our response will come and it will be severe," he said at the site of the attack, according to a statement issued by his office.

The incident has added to concerns that months of cross-border hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah could spiral into a broader, more destructive war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for restraint and warned against escalating violence in the region.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned "this bloodbath" and "unacceptable incident", as he called for utmost restraint.

French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned in the strongest terms the rocket attacks in his phone call with Netanyahu, saying that France was fully committed to avoid a new escalation in the region, The Times of Israel reported.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said both he and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati agree that widening of conflict in the region "is in nobody's interest".

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has accused Israel of the "brutal massacre" in Majdal Shams, stressing that holding Hezbollah responsible for the crime was part of Israel's "blatant attempts to fabricate pretexts" to continue aggression on the region as a whole, Syria's SANA News Agency reported.

Caught up in violence

Haydar Oruc, a former researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, told China Daily the Druze people in Golan Heights, who are "not Israeli citizens", find themselves caught up in the violence in the region.

"It is considered to be part of Israel's attempt to draw the US into the field," Oruc said.

The Golan Heights is Syrian territory occupied by Israel in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Israel captured it in the Six-Day War in 1967, and annexed the territory in 1981. The Druze community in Israel is recognized as a separate religious entity whose culture is mostly Arab, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

In an interview on Sunday with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed, Bou Habib said the United States, France and others were trying to contain the escalation.

"Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way... These are the assurances we've received," he said.

After Israel threatened reprisals, Air France and the German airline group Lufthansa said on Monday they were suspending flights to Beirut. Royal Jordanian also announced the suspension of flights, with at least two of its regular trips to Beirut canceled.

The strike has raised fears of a wider conflict in the region, where tensions have intensified because of Israel's military assault in Gaza, which began more than nine months ago.

Furkan Halit Yolcu, a researcher at Sakarya University Middle East Institute in Turkiye, said the prolonged Palestinian struggle to "merely survive on its inherited soil continues", and warned that if any major new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel starts, both parties will suffer huge losses involving "several dimensions".

Agencies contributed to this story.