Mixed messages from Iran after rocket attack on Golan Heights

Iran is sending mixed signals about the deadly rocket attack in a Druze village that Israel has blamed on the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

On Saturday, at least 12 children and young people aged between 10 and 20 were killed in a missile strike that hit a football field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel said Hezbollah had carried out the attack and vowed to retaliate. The Shiite militia denied having had anything to do with it.

“After 10 months of mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip and the massacre of Palestinian women and children, the apartheid Israeli regime is seeking to mislead the public opinion with a forged scenario to distract the world’s attention from the crimes it commits on a large scale in Palestine,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said, according to a statement on the ministry website.

"This massacre is a war against humanity and violates all internationally recognized laws and regulations," Kanaani said, according to the news agency ISNA.

However, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon struck a different tone, playing down the significance of the attack.

Ambassador Mojtaba Amani wrote Saturday evening on X that the chances of a larger conflict breaking out were "very slim" as there is an "imposed balance of power" in the region.

Amani added that Iran does not want an escalation with Israel nor does it fear one. "Our enemies have to imagine what we can do with our power, capability and defence of resistance," Amani added without elaborating.

Iran, a sworn enemy of Israel, is the key ally of Hamas-aligned Hezbollah that has been locked in a confrontation with Israel since the Gaza war started in October last year.