Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has denied launching a rocket which killed 12 children and teenagers at a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

Analysis by Sky News’ Data and Forensics Unit, however, shows the group was targeting a military base 2.4km (1.5 miles) from the site of the attack.

Based on the launch site location provided by the Israeli military, the rocket would have travelled around 10.2km (6.3 miles) before hitting the sports field in Majdal Shams – well within the 11km range of a Falaq-1.

“It’s an old, unguided artillery rocket,” said Shaan Shaikh, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“There was actually an incident in 2005 where Hezbollah launched a Falaq-1 into Israel entirely by accident.”

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said Hezbollah has been attacking the Ma’ale Golani military base for several months.

“When you plan military operations like this, there’s always a chance for error,” he said.

That’s especially true with an unguided rocket like the Falaq-1, which Mr Hinz described as “very short range but very heavy”.

“It’s something to lob large amounts of explosives over relatively short distance,” he said.

But for the missile to miss its target by 2.4km, Mr Hinz said, would be a sign that something went “really, really wrong”.

Hezbollah was quick to distance itself from the attack, denying responsibility within an hour of the first reports of casualties.

Read more:
Community devastated by rocket strike on football pitch
Israel’s threats to Hezbollah harden supporters’ attitudes

The vast majority of the 12,000 residents of Majdal Shams are Druze, a religious minority with 250,000 members in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

The 12 fatalities represent the largest number of civilians killed in Israeli-controlled territory in a single attack since the 7 October Hamas massacre.

In Saturday’s strike, at least 10 of the fatalities were aged between 10 and 16, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price for this attack, one that it has not paid so far”.

Mr Hinz said Israeli authorities will feel compelled to respond due to the scale of the attack.

“The temperature is going up.”

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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