Syria holds ceremony for youths killed in annexed Golan

QUNEITRA: Damascus held a condolence ceremony on Tuesday in Quneitra city for 12 children killed in the nearby Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in a strike that Israel has blamed on Syria’s ally Hezbollah.
Dozens of Syrians wearing traditional white Druze caps attended the event, in a tent outside a government building in Quneitra city — just a few hundred meters from the annexed Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.
“We came to show our solidarity with our people, the families of the martyrs in Majdal Shams... These children are our children,” said resident Jawdat Talia.
Israel said Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket on the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams, but the Tehran-backed group said it had “no connection” to the incident.
Earlier on Tuesday, Druze residents of the annexed Golan Heights distanced themselves from Israeli threats to retaliate against Hezbollah for the deadly strike.
Most of Majdal Shams’s 11,000 or so residents still identify as Syrian more than half a century after Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community.
While the Druze of Israel are officially considered Israeli citizens, the vast majority of those in the Golan have refused to take Israeli nationality.
“From here, just a few meters away from the border strip, we offer our deepest condolences to our people inside the occupied territories,” lawmaker Walid Darwish told AFP.
Syrian forces regained full control of Quneitra province in 2018, which had mostly been held by rebel factions since 2013.
The province includes part of the Golan Heights, which is mostly Israeli-occupied, with the two countries still officially at war.
The Druze, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are an Arabic-speaking community present in Israel, Lebanon and Syria, including the Golan.
The heartland of Syria’s Druze minority is Sweida province, which borders Quneitra and has experienced anti-government demonstrations for nearly a year.
Damascus has turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of Druze men refusing to undertake compulsory military service.
The vast majority of them have not taken up arms against Damascus.
On Monday, during a visit to Majdal Shams, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would deliver a “severe response” to the deadly strike.
On Sunday, Lebanon’s top diplomat said a flurry of diplomatic activity was underway to contain an expected Israeli response against Hezbollah after the attack.