Strike in Israeli-controlled Golan Heights kills at least 12 and threatens to spark a wider war

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rocket strike Saturday at a soccer field killed at least 12 children and teens, Israeli authorities said, in the deadliest strike on an Israeli target along the country's northern border since the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began. It raised fears of a broader regional war.

Israel blamed Hezbollah for the strike in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, but Hezbollah rushed to deny any role. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price for this attack, one that it has not paid so far."

The Israeli military's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, called it the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that sparked the war in Gaza. He said 20 others were wounded.

“There is no doubt that Hezbollah has crossed all the red lines here, and the response will reflect that,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israeli Channel 12. “We are nearing the moment in which we face an all-out war.”

Hezbollah chief spokesman Mohammed Afif told The Associated Press that the group “categorically denies carrying out an attack" on the town of Majdal Shams.” It is unusual for Hezbollah to deny an attack.

The office of Netanyahu, who was on a visit to the United States, said he would cut short his trip by several hours, without specifying when he would return. It said he will convene the security Cabinet after arriving.

Far-right members of Netanyahu’s government called for a harsh response against Hezbollah. But an all-out war with a militant group with far superior firepower to Hamas would be trying for Israel’s military after nearly 10 months of fighting in Gaza.

Footage aired on Israeli Channel 12 showed a large blast in one of the valleys in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981. Some Druze have Israeli citizenship. Many still have sympathies for Syria and rejected Israeli annexation, but their ties with Israeli society have grown over the years.

Video showed paramedics rushing stretchers off the soccer field toward waiting ambulances.

Ha’il Mahmoud, a resident, told Channel 12 that children were playing soccer when the rocket hit the field. He said a siren was heard seconds before the rocket hit, but there was no time to take shelter.

Jihan Sfadi, the principal of an elementary school, told Channel 12 that five students were among the dead: “The situation here is very difficult. Parents are crying, people are screaming outside. No one can digest what has happened.”

Israel's military said its analysis showed that the rocket was launched from an area north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said early Sunday that it struck targets deep inside Lebanon as well as in southern Lebanon. There were no reports of casualties and the strikes were no more intense than what has become routine over the past 10 months.

The strike at the soccer field, just before sunset, followed earlier cross-border violence on Saturday, when Hezbollah said three of its fighters were killed, without specifying where. Israel’s military said its air force targeted a Hezbollah arms depot in the border village of Kfar Kila, adding that militants were inside at the time.

Hezbollah said its fighters carried out 10 different attacks using rockets and explosive drones against Israeli military posts, the last of which targeted the army command of the Haramoun Brigade in Maaleh Golani with Katyusha rockets. In a separate statement, Hezbollah said it hit the same army post with a short-range Falaq rocket. It said the attacks were in response to Israeli airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon.

U.S. intelligence officials have no doubts that Hezbollah carried out the attack on the Golan Heights, but it was not clear if the militant group intended the target or misfired, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The White House National Security Council in a statement said the U.S. “will continue to support efforts to end these terrible attacks along the Blue Line, which must be a top priority. Our support for Israel’s security is iron-clad and unwavering against all Iranian-backed terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah.”

Lebanon's government, in a statement that didn't mention Majdal Shams, urged an “immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts” and condemned all attacks on civilians.

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel. In recent weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border has intensified, with Israeli airstrikes and rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah striking deeper and farther away from the border.

Majdal Shams had not been among border communities ordered to evacuate as tensions rose, Israel’s military said, without saying why. The town doesn’t sit directly on the border with Lebanon.

Officials from countries including the United States and France have visited Lebanon to try to ease the tensions but failed to make progress. Hezbollah has refused to cease firing as long as Israel’s offensive in Gaza continues. Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive war in 2006.

Saturday's violence comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing a cease-fire proposal that would wind down the nearly 10-month war in Gaza and free the roughly 110 hostages who remain captive there. Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Israel's offensive has killed more than 39,000 people, according to local health authorities.

Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 45 have been killed, at least 21 of them soldiers.

Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.

Youth walk next to a shelter damaged from shrapnel at a soccer field that was hit by a rocket, killing multiple children and teenagers, in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Israeli soldiers check a shelter damaged from shrapnel at a soccer field that was hit by a rocket, killing multiple children and teenagers, in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A boy walks past bicycles left next to the area that was hit by a rocket, killing multiple children and teenagers, on a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Residents and authorities stand at a soccer field that was hit by a rocket, killing multiple children and teenagers, in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Residents gather with authorities at a soccer field that was hit by a rocket, killing multiple children and teenagers, in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Bicycles sit next to the area that was hit by a rocket that killed multiple children and teenagers at a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Residents rush to help injured children moments after a rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Shams)

Residence and paramedics rush to help children moments after a rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan of Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Shams)

Residence and paramedics rush to help children moments after a rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan of Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Shams)

Destroyed children's bicycles at the site of a rocket attack in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gil Eliyahu)

Israeli police officers and firefighters work at the site of a rocket attack in Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gil Eliyahu)

Residents rush to help injured children moments after a rocket attack hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Shams)

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel memorial prize in economics was awarded Monday to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for research that explains why societies with poor rule of law and exploitative institutions do not generate sustainable growth.

The three economists “have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity,” the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at the announcement in Stockholm.

Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Robinson conducts his research at the University of Chicago.

“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this,” Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said.

He said their research has provided "a much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”

Reached by the academy in Athens, Greece, where he is due to speak at a conference, the Turkish-born Acemoglu, 57, said he was surprised and shocked by the award.

“You never expect something like this," he said.

Acemoglu said the research honored by the prize underscores the value of democratic institutions.

“I think broadly speaking the work that we have done favors democracy,” he said in a telephone call with the Nobel committee and reporters in Stockholm.

But he added that “democracy is not a panacea. Introducing democracy is very hard. When you introduce elections, that sometimes creates conflict.”

Asked about how economic growth in countries like China fits into the theories, Acemoglu said that "my perspective is generally that these authoritarian regimes, for a variety of reasons, are going to have a harder time ... in achieving ... long-term sustainable innovation outcomes.”

Acemoglu and Robinson wrote the 2012 bestseller “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,’’ which argued that manmade problems were responsible for keeping countries poor.

In their work, the winners looked, for instance, at the city of Nogales, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

Despite sharing the same geography, climate, many of the same ancestors and a common culture, life is very different on either side of the border. In Nogales, Arizona, to the north, residents are relatively well-off and live long lives; most children graduate from high school. To the south, in Mexico’s Nogales, Sonora, “residents here are in general considerably poorer. ... Organized crime makes starting and running companies risky. Corrupt politicians are difficult to remove, even if the chances of this have improved since Mexico democratized, just over 20 years ago," the Nobel committee wrote.

The difference, the economists found, is a U.S. system that protects property rights and gives citizens a say in their government.

Acemoglu expressed worry Monday that democratic institutions in the United States and Europe were losing support from the population. “Democracies particularly underperform when the population thinks they underdeliver," he said. “This is a time when democracies are going through a rough patch. … It is, in some sense, quite crucial that they reclaim the high ground of better governance."

The economics prize is formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The central bank established it in 1968 as a memorial to Nobel, the 19th-century Swedish businessman and chemist who invented dynamite and established the five Nobel Prizes.

Though Nobel purists stress that the economics prize is technically not a Nobel Prize, it is always presented together with the others on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Nobel honors were announced last week in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.

Journalists listen when Jan Teorell of the Nobel assembly announces the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology smiles in this image taken on June 22, 2019 in Kiel, Germany, as he and Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson won the Nobel prize in economics for research into reasons why some countries succeed and others fail. (Frank Molter, dpa via AP, File)

The Nobel memorial prize in economics awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson, seen on screen, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren, center, Jakob Svensson, left, and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly announce the Nobel memorial prize in economics winners, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A Robinson, seen on screen, during a press meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday Oct. 14, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The Nobel economics prize is being announced in Sweden

The Nobel economics prize is being announced in Sweden

FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)