TEL AVIV, July 27. /TASS/. Israel will retaliate for the strike on a Golan Heights village of the Druze people, making Hezbollah pay a heavy price, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
He made the pledge as he spoke with Sheikh Muafak Tarif, spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community.
"The prime minister made clear that Israel will not allow the murderous attack to go unanswered, and that Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for this that it has not paid before," the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Netanyahu said he felt "deep horror at the murder of the children and innocents by Hezbollah."
He also asked to pass along his "heartfelt condolences in the name of all Israel" to the families of the murdered and to the entire Druze community.
The IDF earlier reported heavy shelling of Israeli north, including the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, from Lebanon. At least one rocket landed on a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. According to the latest reports, 11 people were killed, including teenagers and children, and 19 were injured.
Hezbollah denied any involvement.
Majdal Shams sits near the separation line between Israel and Syria and has been under Israeli control since the 1967 Six-Day War. Most people in the village are Druze, an Arab ethnoreligious group.