The US and Germany have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “severe” retaliation for a rocket attack blamed on Hizbollah that killed 12 people on Saturday.
The strike on a football pitch where youngsters were playing was the deadliest event for civilians in Israeli-controlled territory in the exchanges fire between Israel and Hizbollah since they began nine months ago, and has sparked fears that the hostilities could spill over into a full-blown war.
“The State of Israel will not, and cannot, ignore this,” Netanyahu said during a visit on Monday to Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the occupied Golan Heights. “Our response will come, and it will be severe.”