SPECIAL REPORT: Broken-hearted Israeli Druze support each other

Druze leaders in the north of Israel have spoken of their “devastation” after the Hezbollah rocket attack on Saturday which killed 12 children on a football field in Majdal Shams.

Twelve of the children — Ameer Rabeea Abu Saleh, 16, Iseel Nasha’at Ayoub, 12, Hazem Akram Abu Saleh, 15, Milad Muadad Alsha’ar, 10; Alma Ayman Fakher Eldin, 11, Naji Taher Alhalabi, 11, Johnny Wadeea Ibrahim, 13, Yazan Nayeif Abu Saleh, 12 , Fajer Laith Abu Saleh, 16, Vinees Adham Alsafadi, 11 Nathem Fakher Saeb, 16, and Gevara Ebraheem, 11 — were murdered in the attack. A further 17 were seriously injured and are still in hospital in Israel.

But Dr Anan Wahabi, a former colonel in the IDF, a research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, said that while the Israeli Druze were still reeling from the attack, they were not calling for “retaliation”. Nevertheless, Dr Wahabi, who lectures at the School of Political Sciences at Haifa University, said that Tuesday’s targeted attack on the Hezbollah commander said to have been responsible for the Majdal Shams deaths, Fuad Shukur, would have “made people feel a bit better”.

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According to IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Shukur, also known as Hajj Mohsin, served as right hand man to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Asked by Jewish News if he thought the Majdal Shams attack was deliberate or a tragic miscalculation by Hezbollah, Dr Wahabi, speaking to members of the Jerusalem Press Club, said he would not be surprised if the attack had been targeted, citing Hezbollah’s “lack of morality” and its belief that attacking Magdal Shams would hit IDF personnel in the area.

Nadim Amar, the former mayor of the Druze town of Julis, said he had known most of the families of the children who were killed. One parent, he said, had been active with him in his organisation, the Druze Zionist Movement. “I know all the mayors of the Druze towns and villages. In that sense, what happened in Majdal Shams affects every Druze in Israel. People here are very angry, very upset, and frustrated. Our hearts are with the Majdal Shams community”.

He said: “These were 12 beautiful girls and boys, slaughtered by a terrorist organisation. There are really no words to describe the situation. Our role now is to strengthen the families, who have been devastated by this evil.”

Amar said he had received “tens of hundreds of calls from the Jewish community”, not just in Israel but internationally, expressing sorrow and sympathy. Noting the continuing plight of the Gaza hostages, the former mayor said that “the whole country of Lebanon has been taken hostage by Hezbollah and Nasrallah”.

But though he was offering a message of peace and was hopeful that matters did not escalate in the wake of the tragedy, Amar was scathing at the presence of far-right politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich at the children’s funerals. He said: “How dare they come to the funerals?” Neither man, he said, had helped the Druze communities, which desperately needed funding for basic amenities.

He believed that “in the same way no-one can forget 7 October, what happened in Majdal Shams will not be forgotten. Of course it’s not the same scale, but it will take a long time for Israeli society to forget this incident.”

Adel Mahmud, who lives in Magdal Shams, is a tennis and ski coach, who told Jewish News that “I used to teach all the children when they were in primary school. I knew all of them — we all know each other here. The kids played all the time on the football field, our local pitch”.

When the explosion took place, Mahmud was at home “and then I ran to the area. It was indescribable. People are torn apart by what happened. In the whole of the Golan Heights, there has not been a child or an old man or woman who has not cried their hearts out. Every child had a story, and it is like we are saying goodbye to them. They were all talented, they loved football and they played every day”. They were, he said, the best of the best.

In general, Druze communities were peaceful and not aggressive, Mahmud said. Their hope was an end to the deaths of children anywhere.

Dr Wahabi suggested that UEFA, the European football body, might do something to commemorate the 12 Druze children who had died.

None of those to whom Jewish News spoke accepted Hezbollah’s denial of responsibility. Metal retrieved from the football field and the children’s bodies clearly showed that the rocket had been an Iranian make, directly supplied to Hezbollah.