Druze elders and mourners surround the coffins of 10 of the 12 people killed in a rocket strike from Lebanon a day earlier, during a mass funeral in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, on July 28, 2024 JALAA MAREY / AFP
Twelve young people from the Druze community died in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The Israeli military said they were killed by an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket fired by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Weeping men carried small coffins at a funeral ceremony attended by thousands from the Druze community on Sunday, July 29, for many of the 12 youths killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The Israeli military said they were struck on Saturday by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike. Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years.
The French Foreign Ministry responded to the attack on Sunday. “France condemns in the strongest terms the particularly fatal attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights,” the ministry said, calling for “everything to be done to avoid a new military escalation.”
Druze women mourn by a coffin during a funeral of a person killed in a rocket strike from Lebanon a day earlier that Israeli authorities said killed 12 people including children in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, on July 28, 2024. MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP
Hundreds of Druze men dressed in traditional attire, including white caps topped with red, attended the ceremonies. Coffins were carried through the crowded narrow streets of the town, which came to a standstill. Others lined balconies to look down on the procession of white-covered caskets with white roses and gypsophila resting on top.
Under a scorching sun, some mourners carried large photos of the dead children, including one boy wearing a suit. Earlier, several women dressed in black abaya robes cried as they laid flowers on the caskets, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent reported.
Checkpoints have been set up at the entrance to every village in the Golan. Israel’s army called Saturday’s rocket strike “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack by Hamas Palestinian militants on southern Israel that triggered war in Gaza.
In Majdal Shams many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. Israel vowed to strike back “hard” after the rocket strike, and Iran warned Israel against any new military “adventures” in Lebanon.
Violence since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 104 civilians. According to Israel’s army, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed so far in northern Israel.
Le Monde/ AFP
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