Israel has launched airstrikes at Hezbollah targets in Lebanon overnight in retaliation for Saturday’s rocket attack on a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, increasing fears of a broader conflict in the region.

According to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) readout yesterday, the targets were “deep inside” Lebanon and included “weapons caches and military infrastructure.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah,denied that it was responsible for the rocket attack at the weekend on a football ground on Saturday, which killed at least 12 people and injured 13 more, many of them children. 

The Golan Heights strike was the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since the start of the conflict in the Gaza Strip last October, and has escalated tensions in the hostilities which have been fought in parallel to the Gaza war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a phone call with the leader of the Druze community in Israel that “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price, the kind it has thus far not paid,” while the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to “hit the enemy hard “confirming a potential retaliation move.