Druze leaders in a Syrian village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights denounce Tel Aviv's threats to "exploit" a rocket strike that killed a number of youths for "revenge".
The regime claims Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters were behind the deadly rocket strike in Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
That is despite the Lebanese resistance group’s strong denial of any role in the incident.
Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Druze village on Monday and said that the Israeli regime forces would take revenge on Lebanon’s Hezbollah by delivering a “severe response” to its fighters.
Following Netanyahu's threatening remarks, Druze leaders said the whole community is still reeling from the children’s deaths. “The tragedy is immense, the impact is painful and the loss is shared by every household in the Golan”.
They said, however, that the Druze leadership and the community oppose any “attempt to exploit the name of Majdal Shams as a political platform at the expense of the blood of our children.”
Majdal Shams Druze leaders distanced themselves from Israeli threats to take revenge on Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance group for the rocket strike on the village which killed 12 children aged between 10 and 16 as they were playing football on a field on Saturday.
The Druze community leaders said, “We reject the shedding of even a single drop of blood under the pretext of avenging our children”.
The Druze religious leaders insisted that their faith strongly “forbids killing and revenge in any form”.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community. Virtually the entire 11,000 mainly Druze population of Majdal Shams identify themselves as Syrians.