MAJDAL SHAMS, Israel — The pain has continued for the families of twelve Druze Israeli Arab children killed in July by a Hezbollah rocket attack, along with the families of the wounded. But so, too, have the embraces and support.
“We continue to feel a great hug from around the world,” Mayor Dolan Abu Saleh told a small group of Christian visitors on Thursday afternoon, standing by the twisted iron fence that still marks the point of impact.
As Breitbart News reported in July, the Hezbollah rocket killed twelve children and wounded many others at a local soccer field and playground. The children heard the warning siren and tried to reach a nearby bomb shelter — but as fate would have it, the rocket landed at the gate between the field and the shelter. To this day, the body of one child, who absorbed the impact directly, has never been recovered.
Life has returned to the soccer field, and children played a pickup game on Thursday afternoon while the visitors met with the parents of some of the victims of the attack.
Abu Saleh noted that it had been especially important for the families of the children to receive so much support even months later, when people had returned to their normal lives. He said he had been especially gratified to receive the support of the Jewish community, in Israel and around the world, and to feel that the Druze Arab community was truly part of the State of Israel.
Druze Arabs live in the mountainous terrain in several countries in the region, and are typically loyal to whatever country they are in. In Israel, many Druze serve in the military, though Majdal Shams is so close to the Syrian border that many families have relatives on both sides, and are careful about questions of identity.
Local religious leader and former mayor Muhsin Abu Saleh hinted at those complexities, telling visitors Thursday that the attack on Majdal Shams should not be used by the Israeli government as a pretext for revenge.
Notably, Israel responded to the attack by killing Hezbollah’s deputy commander, Fuad Shukr, who was also wanted for his role in the bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983. It was the first hint of a much stronger Israeli response to Hezbollah.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.