Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday visited the site of a deadly attack in the annexed Golan Heights, vowed Israel would deliver a "severe response" to the rocket fire that killed 12 children.
"Like all Israeli citizens, and I must say like many around the world, we were deeply shaken by this horrific killing," Netanyahu said at the site of the attack, according to a statement issued by his office.
"These children are our children ... The State of Israel will not, and cannot, let this pass. Our response will come and it will be severe."
Scores of residents of Majdal Shams protested at Netanyahu's visit which came after the last of the victim was buried on Monday, with hundreds of Druze men and women gathering for the funeral, an AFP journalist reported.
Many residents of Majdal Shams have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
The 12 children aged between 10 and 16 were killed on Saturday when a rocket fired from Lebanon struck a football pitch in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams where they were playing.
According to the Israeli military, they were hit by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogramme warhead, adding it was fired by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, which has traded regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in early October, has denied responsibility for the strike, though it claimed multiple attacks on Israeli military positions that day.
Hezbollah says its actions against Israeli forces are in support of Palestinians in Gaza and its ally, the Hamas militant group.
Lufthansa, Air France halt Beirut flights as Israel tensions rise
Air France and the German airline group Lufthansa said Monday they were suspending flights to Beirut after Israel threatened reprisals for a deadly rocket strike launched from Lebanon.
Lufthansa services would be halted up to and including August 5 due to "current developments in the Middle East", a group spokesman told AFP.
Air France and its low-cost subsidiary Transavia France meanwhile said that flights between French airports and Beirut would be suspended on Monday and Tuesday because of the "security situation" in Lebanon.
Royal Jordanian also announced the suspension of flights, with at least two of its regular trips to Beirut cancelled.
Israel has said it would retaliate after rocket fire launched from neighbouring Lebanon. Israel blamed Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which said it had "no connection" to the strike.
The incident heightened fears that the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could spread north to Lebanon.
The country's only airport in Beirut was packed with travellers on Monday, including families anxiously awaiting delayed flights in the suffocating heat, an AFP photographer said.
Syrian-German traveller Nisreen al-Hussein said she found out her flight to Dusseldorf had been cancelled upon arriving at Beirut airport.
"I'm trying to look for another flight but they're all either packed or cancelled," said Hussein, who was travelling with children.
'Long hours in the heat'
Many Syrians have been taking flights from Beirut since civil war erupted in their country in 2011.
Ahmad Arafat, from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, told AFP he had been waiting with his family for a delayed Paris flight for two hours.
"I don't know what I'll do if the flight is cancelled," he said.
"It's going to be difficult waiting long hours in the heat, with young children and little available seating."
Other airlines have also cancelled or rescheduled flights in the wake of the attack.
A Greek airport source told AFP that an Aegean flight to Beirut had been cancelled on Sunday night.
Lebanon's Middle East Airlines said in a statement that it had rescheduled a number of flights on Sunday and Monday, citing "technical reasons related to the distribution of (aircraft) insurance risks".
The Lufthansa group, which includes SWISS and Austrian Airlines, has repeatedly paused travel to the region since the Gaza began in early October.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah have traded cross-border fire following the October 7 attack on Israel by the Lebanese group's Palestinian ally Hamas which triggered the war in Gaza.
The cross-border violence has so far killed at least 529 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 104 civilians.
On the Israeli side, 24 civilians and 22 soldiers have been killed, according to the military.