Boiling anger and profound grief poured out at Majdal Shams at the Golan Heights section of Israel, where thousands gathered on Sunday for the funerals of 10 of the 12 children killed when a rocket from Lebanon hit a soccer field.
An 11th victim was buried in the nearby town of Ein Keinya, while a 12th, a teenage boy, was missing and presumed to have died in the attack.
Black flags flew on the lampposts of Majdal Shams and the surrounding Druze villages – Buq’ata and Masa’ada – and all the local businesses were shuttered for the funerals.
Thousands of locals and visitors from beyond the Golan, most wearing black, filled the town center as the victims’ white coffins were being prepared to be taken to the cemetery overlooking the center.
At the funeral, the families of the victims stood almost motionless and mostly silent, projecting an image of resilience and restraint that is typical of Druze, a Middle Eastern religious minority known for its distinct traditions, as well as the military prowess of its men.
“Any country interested in surviving cannot afford to allow its citizens and residents to be targeted over an extended period of time. We can’t rely on luck alone,” Mowafaq Tarif, a spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, said at the ceremony. Multiple officials attended it, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Education Minister Yoav Kisch as well as Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.
After the event, others spoke less reservedly.
“Lebanon should burn for this,” shouted Samir Halabi, a 52-year-old radio host from Majdal Shams, as he delivered an impromptu and impassioned speech on the soccer field, several yards away from where the rocket struck on Saturday.
“The response should be 10 times the magnitude, they should be obliterated,” one local man, Zaki Amr, 29, said of Hezbollah, which has denied involvement in the incident. Israel and others say it perpetrated the attack, noting that the rocket that hit was a Falaq-1 Iranian-made weapon with a 50-kilogram warhead that, it is believed, Hezbollah alone of the terrorist groups in Lebanon possesses.
Several other locals shared Halabi’s bellicose approach but others were too shocked and emotionally devastated to talk politics. One young man tried unsuccessfully to express himself during an encounter with The Times of Israel.
“I don’t know what to say, truly. I’m sorry,” he finally said, tears running down his face, as he embraced a young woman outside the cemetery.
