Israel was drawing up plans forretaliation against Hezbollah on Sunday after an attack that killed 12 children.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, cut short a trip to the US and called emergency talks with security chiefs, with Israel expected to launch strikes on Lebanon.
Yoav Gallant, Mr Netanyahu’s defence minister, vowed to “hit the enemy hard”, while allies called for calm, amid warnings that an escalation could lead to full-scale “regional war”.
Emmanuel Macron held a call with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday evening urging the Israeli leader to do “everything to avoid a new escalation in the region”.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the White House and the UN also called for calm. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Israel had the right to defend itself but warned: “We don’t want to see the conflict escalate. We don’t want to see it spread.”
Israel has been engaged in a low-level conflict across its northern border since Oct 7 but has so far avoided a major confrontation with Hezbollah, which is backed and armed by Iran.
Hezbollah forces were said to be withdrawing from southern Lebanon on Sunday to avoid detection and the country’s national airline said it was delaying flights into Beirut in anticipation of a major attack.
US intelligence sources confirmed that Hezbollah was behind Saturday’s rocket attack that hit a football pitch in the Golan Heights, the deadliest incident on Israeli soil since Hamas’s Oct 7 massacre. Hezbollah denies its rocket hit civilians.
Twelve children were killed and 28 more were being treated in hospital on Sunday after an Iranian-made rocket hit the pitch in a Druze community inside the Israeli-occupied territories near the border.
Israel responded with limited air strikes overnight on Saturday, but on Sunday pressure was building to launch a full retaliation. Months of border exchanges have ratcheted tensions in northern Israel, where troops have been stationed since Oct 7.
Mr Netanyahu flew home early from the US and straight into security meetings with ministers and military chiefs, where it is believed he was briefed on Israel’s options.
Hardliners in Israel called for the head of Hezbollah to be killed, while one minister said: “Lebanon as a whole has to pay the price.”
Security sources told Israeli media they expected a strong response, while some said it would be carefully calibrated to show strength but avoid major damage.
Herzi Halevi, Israel’s chief of staff, warned on Sunday that “we know how to strike even very far from the state of Israel”, raising the possibility of an attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah.
An Israeli security and defence analyst who works closely with the military told The Telegraph that a “multi-front attack” was likely.
LBCI, a Lebanese news channel, cited diplomatic sources in Washington and Beirut as saying a strike on Lebanon was “certain” but that efforts were being made to keep it limited in scale.
Israeli officials later clarified that they intended to strike Hezbollah without triggering a full-scale conflict, according to a radio station operated by the Israeli military.
“We want to hurt Hezbollah, but without being dragged into a wide regional war,” the officials were quoted as saying.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Sunday that pro-Iran groups and Hezbollah-affiliated fighters had “evacuated their positions” south of the capital and in the Damascus countryside, as well as in parts of the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights, in anticipation of “potential Israeli air strikes”.
Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines said on Sunday it had delayed the departures of some incoming flights set to land in Beirut overnight, rescheduling to arrive on Monday morning instead.
Six flights arriving to Beirut overnight from London, Copenhagen and four other cities in the Middle East would be delayed so that they would instead take off on Monday morning.
A low-intensity border war has raged since October, and around 200,000 civilians have been displaced from northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
More than 340 drones and over 6,400 projectiles have been launched at Israel, killing 22 soldiers and 23 civilians.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had killed at least 384 Hezbollah operatives, while scores of civilians caught in the crossfire in southern Lebanon have also been killed.
The White House said on Sunday that Washington has been in discussions with Israeli and Lebanese officials since Saturday’s attack, which it condemned and described as “horrific.”
Mr Lammy said Britain was “deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation and destabilisation”, pointing blame at Hezbollah. “We have been clear Hezbollah must cease their attacks,” he said.
Israel has been warned at various times to show restraint. When it was attacked by Iran with a barrage of missiles and drones, Israel responded with a carefully calibrated missile strike on air-defence systems in a show of strength that avoided a major escalation and regional war.
