A rocket attack on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights today killed 11 people, including children, Israeli authorities said, blaming Hezbollah and vowing to retaliate against the Iranian-backed Lebanese group.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility.
The Israeli army said it was a "very serious" incident and added that it would respond appropriately.
The Beta agency reports that the Israeli army claims that all the dead were between ten and 20 years old.
The rocket strike that hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams is the deadliest attack along Israel's northern border since fighting broke out between Israeli forces and Hezbollah as the Gaza war erupted.
"Today's attack by Hezbollah crossed all red lines and the response will be in accordance with that. We are approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon," Foreign Minister Israel Katz told the Akios media, reports Reuters.
In a written statement, Hezbollah said: "The Islamic Resistance has absolutely nothing to do with the incident and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard."
Reuters reports that the group previously announced several rocket attacks on Israeli military positions in other locations from Lebanon.
The spokesman of the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, said that Hezbollah fired a rocket at children who were playing football in the north of Israel, and then lied and claimed that it did not carry out the attack.
Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Mohamed Afif, told the AP that the group "categorically denies that it carried out the attack on Majdal Shams."
It is unusual for Hezbollah to deny the attack, according to Radio Free Europe.
The militant group previously said its fighters carried out nine separate attacks using rockets and explosive drones on Israeli military positions in response to Israeli airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon.
The rocket attack on the soccer field followed earlier cross-border violence on Saturday, when Hezbollah said three of its fighters had been killed, without specifying where.
Israel's military said its air force targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot in the border village of Kfar Kila, adding that the militants were inside at the time.
The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted a military structure belonging to Hezbollah after identifying militants who had entered the building.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for at least four attacks, including by Kaćush rockets, in retaliation for the attacks on Kfar Kila.
Footage broadcast on Israel's Channel 12 shows a large explosion in one of the valleys in the Druze town of Majal Shams, on the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting the United States (USA), announced that he would cut his stay short by a few hours, but did not specify when he would return.
Netanyahu said Hezbollah would pay a heavy price for a rocket attack that killed 11 people, including children, on a soccer field in a Druze village on Saturday.
"Hezbollah will pay a high price, which it has not paid so far," Netanyahu told the leader of the Druze community in Israel in a telephone conversation, according to a statement from his office, as reported by Reuters.
In a statement, the Lebanese government, without mentioning Majdal Shams, called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts" and condemned all attacks on civilians.
Earlier today, Eli Bin, director general of Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, reported that nine people were killed in the Majdal Shams attack, 34 were wounded, 17 were in critical condition, and ten of them were children.
Hezbollah announced earlier today that it responded to Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon that killed three of its members with rocket attacks on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Hezbollah announced that more than 10 people were injured in that attack, the AP agency reported.
Hezbollah claims it hit a military base on the Golan Heights in response to Israeli attacks on a village in Lebanon.
The Israeli army announced that according to intelligence data, the rocket attack in the direction of Majdal Shams was carried out by the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
"The terrorist organization Hezbollah is behind the rocket attack on the soccer field in Majdal Shams that caused numerous civilian casualties, including children, earlier this evening," the army said.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since October 8, the day after members of Hamas, which the US and EU consider a terrorist organization, invaded southern Israel.
In recent weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border has intensified, with Israeli airstrikes by Hezbollah rockets and drones hitting ever farther from the border.
Saturday's escalation came as Israel and Hamas consider a ceasefire proposal that would end the nearly 10-month war and free about 110 hostages who remain trapped in Gaza.
In the attack by Hamas on October 7, according to Israeli data, about 1.200 people were killed and about 250 hostages were taken. The latter Israeli offensive killed more than 39.000 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Authority.
Since the beginning of October, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly members of Hezbollah, but also about 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 44 people were killed, of which at least 21 were soldiers.
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