Photo: Thousands of people, including several ministers attended the funerals late Sunday morning of 11 of the 12 children killed in the rocket attack on Majdal Shams on Saturday. The rocket was fired from Lebanon. Hezbollah was blamed for the attack, but denied any role in the massacre
Two days after a rocket slammed into a soccer field in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children, many questions remain about the attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams.
Israel accused Hezbollah in Lebanon of deliberately targeting civilians, while the Lebanese militant group quickly issued a rare denial of any responsibility for the attack.
With Israel vowing retaliation for what was the highest civilian death toll in Israel-held territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, diplomats rushed to prevent an escalation that could spiral into an all-out war after months of exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the Lebanese-Israeli border.
Weapons experts told The Associated Press that evidence points to a rocket from Lebanon hitting the field. But they raised the possibility that the hit on civilians was an accident.
Here’s what we know and what remains unclear about the attack.
The strike
The strike left a crater about 2 meters (yards) wide, breaking through the carpet of artificial grass where the children were playing. Around it were scattered burned-out bicycles and scooters, some electric bikes with their batteries melted. Walls of a nearby tent and shelter were pockmarked from shrapnel.
The Israeli military’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said an Iranian-made Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram (117-pound) warhead belonging to Hezbollah was used in the attack that landed in the town of over 11,000 inhabitants.
Israel released images of rocket fragments it said the military found, with visible lettering that matched pictures of Falaq rockets also provided by the military. The AP was unable to verify that the fragments were found on-site. No ordinance debris was visible when AP reporters visited the site on Monday.
The Israeli military was investigating why its renowned missile defense system called Iron Dome did not intercept the rocket.
While Iron Dome’s radar detected the launch, it did not release an interceptor missile to knock down the rocket, an Israeli military official told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.
The military said the flight time may have been too brief. The rocket was fired from just north of the Lebanese town of Chebaa, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Majdal Shams, it said. Hezbollah has experimented with launching rockets from a shorter distance.
The Iron Dome alert set off sirens at 6:18 p.m. Majdal Shams’ local council reported the rocket landed less than a minute later, leaving no chance for the children to run to shelters.
“At very short distance, you don’t have enough time to operate the Iron Dome,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. It’s nearly impossible to intercept rockets fired from within 5 kilometers (3 miles) that take 2-3 seconds to reach their destination, he said.
As a result, the interception rate along the northern border is considerably lower than in central Israel, where Iron Dome batteries have more time, he said.
AP
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