JERUSALEM, July 30, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Israel and Hezbollah exchanged deadly 
fire on Tuesday, following a rocket attack from Lebanon on the Golan Heights 
that killed 12 children over the weekend and sent regional tensions soaring.

The strike on the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed 
Golan Heights on Saturday, whose victims were aged between 10 and 16, was 
blamed by Israel and the United States on Lebanon's Hezbollah, but the Iran-
backed group has denied any connection to the attack.

During a visit Monday to Majdal Shams, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu vowed a "severe response", raising fears yet again that the Gaza 
war could spill over into a wider regional conflagration, despite 
international appeals for calm.

Israeli medics on Tuesday said one civilian, a 30-year-old man, was killed 
following a rocket attack on the northern kibbutz of HaGoshrim.

The Israeli army meanwhile reported its forces were "striking the sources of 
fire", which were in Lebanon.

It had said earlier that it struck around 10 Hezbollah targets overnight in 
seven different areas of south Lebanon, killing one fighter from the Iran-
backed group.

Hezbollah said on Tuesday that it had fired a salvo of Katyusha rockets at a 
military headquarters in the village of Beit Hillel, in response to "the 
Israeli enemy's attack on the town of Jibchit, which resulted in civilian 
casualties".

Lebanon's official National News Agency had reported a strike in the Jibchit 
area that caused "major damage".

- 'Constant anxiety' -
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel in solidarity with 
its ally Hamas since war erupted in Gaza in October.

At least 531 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an 
AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 105 
civilians.

The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli 
side, including in the Golan Heights, according to army figures.

Lebanon has been bracing for major retaliatory strikes following the Golan 
attack, amid international efforts to defuse tensions.

But Druze residents of the town -- the vast majority of whom have rejected 
Israeli citizenship and identify as Syrians -- have rejected threats of 
retaliation for the deadly strike.

Scores of Majdal Shams residents had come out to protest Netanyahu's visit 
after the burial of the last of the victims of the rocket strike.

A paramedic from Majdal Shams, Nabih Abu Saleh, told AFP his community was 
"against any Israeli response", and asked: "Who will we strike? Our people in 
Syria and Lebanon?"

A French diplomat told AFP that Paris "alongside other partners, notably the 
United States, is making all-out efforts to call on the parties to exercise 
restraint and not to be drawn into spiralling violence".

Lebanon's Middle East Airlines chairman Mohammed al-Hout said Beirut airport, 
its only international facility, "is not exposed to any threat, it is 
supposed to be a neutral place", state media reported.

Multiple international airlines have suspended flights to Beirut amid 
Israel's promises of retaliation.

The Lebanese public, meanwhile, has been gripped by worry, with mother of two 
Cosette Beshara describing living "in a state of constant anxiety".
"I'm always thinking about how I will escape with my children if war breaks 
out," said the 40-year-old, adding that "life goes on in Lebanon... but 
always with a looming state of anxiety."

- Khan Yunis operation -

The Hamas attack on southern Israel that started the war resulted in the 
deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on 
official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in 
Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 
people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which 
does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Fighting has meanwhile raged on unabated in the besieged Gaza Strip, with the 
territory's civil defence agency saying on Tuesday that around 300 people had 
been killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis during an Israeli operation 
there that began on July 22.

"Since the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of the eastern part of 
Khan Yunis province, the civil defence and medical teams have recovered 
approximately 300 bodies of martyrs, many of them decomposed," agency 
spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The military meanwhile said it had completed its operation in the Khan Yunis 
area, which had seen heavy fighting earlier this year, and had killed "over 
150 terrorists".