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.
The Golan Druze largely identify as Syrian, while having resident status, rather than citizenship, in Israel. According to the Israeli military, Majdal Shams was hit Saturday with an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogramme warhead.
Hezbollah, which has traded regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in early October, has denied responsibility for the strike, though it claimed multiple attacks on Israeli military positions that day.
Hezbollah says its actions against Israeli forces are in support of Palestinians in Gaza and its ally, the Hamas militant group. The violence on the Israel-Lebanon border has killed at least 527 people on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally.
Most of the dead have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 104 civilians. On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed, according to Israel's army.
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Strike On Israeli Golan Heights Kills 11, Threatens To Spark Wider War; Hezbollah Denies Role
