Netanyahu says Hezbollah will pay heavy price for Majdal Shams strike

A strike that killed 12 young people in Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, has prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States.

Israel blamed Lebanon's Hezbollah for firing a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket but the Iran-backed group said it had "no connection" to the incident.

Upon arrival Netanyahu went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, his office said.

"Hezbollah will pay a heavy price, a price it has not paid before", he said.

After the meeting, his office said: "The members of the cabinet authorized the prime minister and the defense minister to decide on the manner and timing of the response against the Hezbollah terrorist organization." It offered no further details.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier Sunday visited the scene and vowed Israel would "hit the enemy hard".

Israel's foreign ministry said Hezbollah had "crossed all red lines".

In expectation of Israel's retaliation, Hezbollah evacuated several positions close to the border and in eastern Lebanon, a source close to the group said.

Israel's military said later Sunday it had hit Hezbollah targets "both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon".

The strike on Majdal Shams hit a football pitch and killed children who local authorities said were aged 10 to 16.

- Is Hezbollah behind the strike? -

Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said the position Hezbollah said it targeted is about 2.4 kilometers from the town, putting it "within margin of error" of the inaccurate rockets.

But "the possibility of a misfire" from an Israeli air-defense missile could not be ruled out and there should be an independent investigation, he added.

The rocket fire on Majdal Shams came after an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon, prompting the militant group to launch retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan and northern Israel.

The White House said the rocket launch was "conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah", adding that "it was their rocket and launched from an area they control".

The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) chief Aroldo Lazaro said in a joint statement that intensifying exchanges of fire "could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief".

Lebanon urged "an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts", later calling for an "international investigation" into the strike.

- Gaza ceasefire effort -

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani warned that "any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region".

Israel's foreign ministry called the incident in Majdal Shams a "massacre", accusing Hezbollah of deliberately targeting civilians.

Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

Syria denounced Israel's "false accusations" against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for "pretexts to enlarge its aggression".

Cross-border fire since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead have been fighters but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.

According to Israel's army, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed so far in northern Israel.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza, his movement would stop cross-border attacks.

Blinken said the best way to prevent the Gaza conflict from escalating "is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we're working so hard on".

Months of effort have failed to secure a deal, but Egyptian state-linked media said talks were to take place Sunday in Rome.