The Israeli security cabinet authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to decide on the “manner and timing” of a response to a rocket strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teens, “and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese terror group Hezbollah,” reported Times of Israel this morning. The TOI reports that during a four-hour meeting on July 28, Sunday night, ministers voted to give Netanyahu and Gallant authority to decide on the scale and timing of Israel’s response to the July 27 rocket strike on the Golan Heights soccer field that killed a dozen children. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, hardliners who have pushed to ratchet up the severity of reprisal actions, both abstained from the vote, according to Israel’s major daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
Russia, meanwhile, is sending signals of restraint in an attempt to head off further escalation. “It is crucial to urgently cease fire. We are sending relevant signals to the Israeli leadership. We are also expressing our assessments (that) the Lebanese forces and other forces in the region have no intention to start a large-scale war in Israel. We hope that our assessments will be heard,” Russia’s Ambassador to Tel Aviv Anatoly Viktorov said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel this morning, reported TASS. At the same time, the ambassador emphasized, the prospects for the cessation of hostilities and bloodshed are extremely elusive, so serious work will have to be continued along these lines.
