A town's anguish over children killed in a soccer field

(JNS) - MAJDAL SHAMS, Israel - The pictures of 12 smiling children line the shattered gate of a soccer field, above wreaths of flowers. The blackened remains of bicycles lie next to the bomb shelter the boys and girls were rushing to after a siren went off during their weekend game in this windswept Druze village in the Golan Heights.

"Donated with love for the safety of the People of Israel," reads a sign on the shelter, pockmarked by the shrapnel from the Iranian-made Hezbollah rocket that struck here on Saturday evening. With a warhead containing over 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives, the blast marked the most lethal attack on northern Israel since the outbreak of the nearly 10-month-old war.

"They heard the sirens and ran towards the shelter, but didn't make it in time," said the town's mayor, Dolan Abu Saleh, on Tuesday. "This is a disaster not just for Majdal Shams but for the whole State of Israel.  We will carry this pain for years."

At the mass funeral for the children in the town on Sunday, some residents pressed Israel to take action against Hezbollah, noting that after the Houthis struck Tel Aviv with a drone earlier this month, Israel hit back as far as Yemen.

On Tuesday evening, Israel killed a top Hezbollah leader in Beirut responsible for the group's missile, rocket and drone program, in the first such strike against the Iranian-backed Shi'ite terror group in the Lebanese capital since the war broke out.

A town in shock

This generally quiet community, adjacent to Mount Hermon on the strategic plateau, is in a state of collective shock and reflection. 

"We are broken and bleeding, but are determined that national resilience will come back," said Abu Saleh, standing in the stricken soccer pitch.

Black flags fly everywhere in the village. The square adjacent to the soccer field now features a dozen chairs, a soccer ball on each, as well as a white T-shirt with the first name of each of the young victims. Above the chairs is a photomontage of the 12.

Druze in the spotlight

A religious sect that began about a thousand years ago in Egypt as an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, the Druze, who number about one million worldwide, primarily live in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, as well as in smaller communities in Western cities around the globe.

Majdal Shams is one of four Druze communities in the Golan Heights, with a total population of some 20,000 people. About 40 percent of the Golan Druze, who came under Israeli control in the 1967 Six Day War, have accepted Israeli citizenship, while the remainder are permanent residents. The Syrian civil war, which left half a million people dead, brought them closer to Israel in recent years as they watched the human rights disaster unfold across the border.

At the same time, the Druze who live in the Galilee-home to the vast majority of Israel's over 150,000-strong Druze population-are strongly patriotic. Their men serve in the Israel Defense Forces, a whopping 85 percent enlisting in combat units.

'Shooting to kill'

The attack on Majdal Shams was an embarrassment to Hezbollah and could mark a watershed event in the Golan Druze's relationship with the Jewish state.

According to IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Gidi Harari, a former intelligence officer, the attack was tragic, but not unexpected given Hezbollah's constant attacks on northern Israel since Oct. 8. 

"It could have happened six months ago, and it could happen again," he said, rattling off Hezbollah attacks nearby over the past 10 months, including an anti-tank missile that hit a kindergarten and a rocket that landed in a high school. The Lebanese terrorist group has rained down thousands of missiles, rockets and drones on northern Israel since Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre.

"They're shooting at civilians because they want to kill and for no other reason," said Harari.

On Tuesday afternoon, an Israeli man in his 30s was killed by a Hezbollah rocket in Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the Galilee panhandle. 

Later the same day, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for additional attacks on northern Israel, including a volley of Katyusha rockets on the town of Beit Hillel, located just southwest of HaGoshrim.

Forty-three people, soldiers and civilians, have been killed by the Lebanese terror group in northern Israel since Oct. 7. 

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced as a result of the ongoing attacks, with towns near the Israel-Lebanon border standing empty. 

A 'partnership and a covenant'

While the Majdal Shams community is still reeling from the tragedy, the mayor, a distant relation to four of the children killed, speaks of it as their sacrifice toward a better future, one not marred by war and sorrow, for all the people in the region, as well as a bond with Israel.

"We sense it is a partnership and a covenant," the mayor said.