Majdal Shams in Mourning: A Day After the Deadly Rocket Attack

Jerusalem, 28 July, 2024 (TPS) -- One day after a devastating rocket attack killed 12 children at a soccer field, the Druze village of Majdal Shams is reeling with grief and shock. The soccer pitch, once filled with the joyful sounds of children playing, is now a field of mourning tents. Eleven children were laid to rest today, while one has yet to be found.

“It’s impossible to put into words. I stood there, unable to face the parents. The shock and pain were just too overwhelming,” Ali Tarabih, a volunteer for the United Hatzalah emergency service told The Press Service of Israel, as he described facing the parents at the funerals.

Tarabih was one of the first responders to arrive at the soccer field on Saturday.

“The explosion happened right next to my wife’s parents’ house. My daughter always played there at the playground right next to the soccer field. When I got there, the scene was overwhelming. There were so many injured, and everyone was trying to help in any way they could,” he recalled, his voice heavy with emotion.

“The injured I reached were all children, about ten years old,” Tarabih recounted. “I evacuated one child to the hospital in an ambulance; he had a foreign object in his left thigh and also a foreign object in his lungs, so it was difficult to understand or communicate with them. They themselves did not understand what had happened to them.”

Despite 10 months of Hezbollah rocket fire, the attack was unprecedented.

“We have many doctors and nurses in the area who were home as it was Saturday, so they all came to help. We managed to stop the bleeding for many, but there just weren’t enough ambulances to evacuate them to the hospitals,” Tarabih said. He explained that the ongoing rocket barrage made it difficult for rescue workers to safely approach the scene.

“Even as we were treating the injured, there were still rocket alerts being sounded. We are not familiar with that kind of situation. This is the first time we have encountered such a horror. I think, since then, people are still in shock, still not comprehending what happened,” he said.

As Majdal Shams mourns, the community also demonstrates a spirit of defiance. Residents angrily demanded that government ministers,  arriving to pay their respects, take direct action against Hezbollah, even if it meant launching a widespread attack on the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

“The Druze in the Golan Heights emphasized to the officials that we will not leave our homes. We prefer to die defending our homes rather than evacuate,” a resident of Majdal Shams told TPS-IL. He requested to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of his military position.

“The correct equation is an attack and disproportionate military pressure in a short campaign. For a decade and a half, Israel has been operating outside the principles of military doctrine,” the resident insisted. “I’m afraid that this way, the state will not survive extended and multi-front wars. We need endurance and, before that, a spirit of resilience and a willingness to win wars.”

Hezbollah initially claimed responsibility twice on Saturday for firing rockets at an army base on the nearby Mount Hermon, a few hundred meters away from Majdal Shams. But the Iran-backed terror organization backed off the claim as the casualty count mounted, claiming that the children were killed by an Israeli Iron Dome interceptor.

The Israel Defense Force said it determined that the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead launched from a location north of the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon. According to the army, warning sirens sounded, but there wasn’t enough time to take cover. The military is investigating why the rocket was not intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.

“The rocket that murdered our boys and girls was an Iranian rocket and Hezbollah is the only terror organization which has those in its arsenal,” the Ministry said.

Israel’s Druze community of 152,000 trace their ancestry back to the Biblical figure Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. Israeli Druze serve in senior positions in public and military life, and the bond between Jewish and Druze soldiers is referred to as the “covenant of blood.” The Druze speak Arabic but are not Muslim and are very secretive about their religious beliefs.

The Alma Research and Education Center told TPS-IL on Thursday that Hezbollah rocket barrages on northern Israel are expanding in range, reaching deeper into Israel to unevacuated communities.

Nearly 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes near the Lebanon border when Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones in October. Hezbollah leaders have said they will continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes. The attacks have killed 23 civilians and 18 soldiers.