Majdal Shams - July 28, 2024

Thousands of people gathered Sunday in Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for the funeral of 11 of the 12 children who were killed while playing soccer a day earlier by a missile attributed to Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

“The images of horror will never be erased,” Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif read at the ceremony, saying it was a “dark Saturday” that will remain ”etched in memory as a low point in humanity.”

On a square in the heart of the Druze city, thousands of citizens, most of them wearing black, crowded the streets, rooftops and balconies as the 12 white coffins with the deceased children, aged between 10 and 16, passed by.

Some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ministers present at the funeral, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Economy Minister Nir Barkat, were booed and shouted at by some of the attendees.