Hezbollah is discounting a potentially “brutal” operation by Israel’s armed forces against its positions in Lebanon in retaliation for yesterday’s deadly attack on the Golan Heights.

“We have been on high alert for months now, alert for an attack by the enemy,” German Agency sources told Hezbollah.

“This is nothing new, we are on permanent alert,” they added.

However, Hezbollah is now expecting a possibly “severe” attack by the Israeli military, the sources in the movement added.

Twelve children and youths were killed and dozens of others injured when a rocket hit a soccer field in a Druze village in the occupied and Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Saturday.

The Israeli authorities denounced that the attack was carried out by Hezbollah and explained that the Lebanese movement will “pay dearly”.

Hezbollah denied with a statement that it was its own action.

According to Lebanese media, Hezbollah has decided to remove its fighters from about 100 of their positions in the southern part of the country, a stronghold of the movement.

In addition to the near-daily shelling on the border and strikes deep inside Lebanon, the Israeli armed forces have repeatedly targeted senior officials of Hezbollah’s military arm.

The hostilities on the border since the day after the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip have been described as the fiercest since the so-called Second Lebanon War (2006).

A further escalation of the conflict could spark a wider conflagration in the region with unpredictable consequences, as groups close to Iran are seen as certain to intensify their actions against Israel and its most important international ally, the US.