Majdal Shams:Hundreds gathered Monday in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams for the funeral of the last of 12 youths killed by rocket fire from Lebanon.
Eleven-year-old Guevara Ibrahim was initially reported missing after Saturday's strike that hit a football pitch in the Druze Arab town but was later confirmed to be among the dead. The 11 others killed in the attack, blamed on Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group, were all aged 10 to 16 and laid to rest in ceremonies on Sunday.
An AFP photographer in Majdal Shams said more than 1,000 people, mostly members of the Druze community, had arrived for Ibrahim's funeral on Monday. Dressed in black and wearing white caps topped with red, the men gathered around the coffin covered in a white shroud.
A few boys, some carrying footballs in their hands, took part in the ceremony along with their families, with many women seen weeping as they embraced children accompanying them.
"This is a tragedy that has struck us. It has shaken our hearts, shaken the whole world," said a woman, dressed in a black abaya robe and white headscarf. "Enough is enough. We hope the war will end. Enough of this tragedy and bloodshed," she said, declining to be named.
Many residents of Majdal Shams have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. Following the conquest of about two-thirds of the Golan plateau during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel in 1981 annexed the area in a move not recognised by the international community, with the exception of the United States since 2019.