In a statement, Lebanese Hezbollah categorically denied the allegations voiced by various Israeli media platforms about striking Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. On July 27, a rocket hit a football field in Majdal Shams, killing 12 people, including children.
Majdal Shams is an Arabic-speaking village with a population of about 25,000 Druze, a community of Muslim origin. The Golan Heights is a territory that belong to Syria. It captured by the Israeli occupying forces in 1967 and they have occupied the area ever since. However, this occupation and Israel’s actions are not recognised internationally.
The tragedy in the Golan has successfully displaced another, even larger tragedy from the information sphere. Shortly before the rocket attack on the Golan, the Israeli army fired at a school in the south of the Gaza Strip. More than thirty people were killed, most of them children and teenagers, and over a hundred people were injured. This has extended the sad list of Palestinian civilian victims of the IDF, and today the number of casualties is approaching 40,000. For some reason nobody really grieved for the Palestinian children, for they are ‘second-class people’.
Hezbollah’s announcement
Against the background of ongoing Hezbollah operations against Israeli military positions, the Lebanese resistance, in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, informed the UN that the incident in the Golan Heights occurred as a result of an Israeli rocket landing on a football field. This is not the first time that Israeli missile batteries and Iron Dome systems have missed their targets and hit Majdal Shams. For example, a similar incident occurred on July 10, when Tel Aviv also rushed to blame Hezbollah. Later assessments showed that a technical malfunction of Israeli air defence systems was behind the incident in Majdal Shams on July 10, despite the fact that Tel Aviv, as always, quickly shifted the blame to Hezbollah.
This new attack on the Druze community, which is widely represented in Lebanon, has again raised suspicions because of its timing, the nature of the civilian target and the power of the explosion. This contradicts ten months of daily operations by Hezbollah, which has targeted Israeli military positions and sometimes Israeli settlements in retaliation to deadly Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah has confirmed its complete non-involvement in the incident, refuting all ‘false statements’ being circulated. The organisation said in a statement: “The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon categorically denies the accusations of some enemy media and various websites about the attack on Majdal Shams”.
Netanyahu’s false excuses
Experts say that because of the determination, sincerity and transparency of the Lebanese Resistance and the criminal history of the Israeli occupation, only one side has a track record of lying and that is Tel Aviv. Moreover, the genocidal war unleashed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his armed forces against the Gaza Strip – taking into account the harsh condemnation of Tel Aviv’s actions by the world community – convincingly point to the real perpetrator. According to initial data alone, in the course of the massacre, the IDF killed about 40,000 Palestinians (many victims are under the rubble of buildings and are not accounted for). The Israeli military proudly reported that they had killed up to 10,000 Hamas fighters, which is hard to believe, as Israelis have been caught lying more than once. Most likely, they were able to destroy 5,000-6,000 Palestinian fighters and the remaining 30,000+ are women and children. Does anyone mourn them in Israel? No. Netanyahu believes that all Palestinians are enemies, and they must be destroyed! “Today they are Palestinian children, tomorrow they are enemies of Israel”.
In light of the accusations made by Israeli officials and media following the Majdal Shams incident, Netanyahu cut short his trip to the United States and returned to Tel Aviv. Israeli media reported that he was supposed to preside over a meeting of the Council of Ministers. It was also reported that Netanyahu held preliminary consultations with the military regarding the attack on Lebanon, for which, according to senior military officials, everything has been prepared: troops have been deployed to the north, closer to the Lebanese border, Merkava tanks with a triple supply of shells are already there, rocket launchers are aimed at Hezbollah positions.
The view of Lebanese politicians
Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, confirmed that Hezbollah’s denial of its participation in the latest incident is confirmed by the organisation’s policy not to strike civilian targets, especially a football field in a village populated by Muslims. During a telephone conversation with the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, Berri said that despite the Israeli military shelling civilians, agricultural areas, emergency crews and media personnel using internationally prohibited weapons, Lebanon, which has been subjected to continuous Israeli aggression for more than nine months, continues to remain committed to Resolution 1701 and the rules of engagement, which prohibits striking civilians (despite the blatant violations by Israel).
Former Druze Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt stated: “In light of Hezbollah’s statement denying the involvement of the Islamic Resistance in the Majdal Shams tragedy, we are convinced that the Israeli enemy has been working for a long time to foment discord and fragment the region into many splinters”. The veteran politician added that the Druze had previously disrupted this Israeli policy and they were ready to work together with the Hezbollah resistance and all those who oppose Israeli crime and occupation. Jumblatt noted: “We call on everyone in Lebanon, Palestine and the Golan to avoid any blunders or incitement within the framework of the destructive project of the enemy, given the need to prevent the expansion of the war and immediately stop aggression and shooting, emphasising the rejection and condemnation of attacks on civilians, whether in occupied Palestine, the occupied Golan or southern Lebanon”.
Also, the head of the Lebanese Democratic Party and the political leader of the Druze community, Talal Arslan, stressed: “What happened is nothing more than a vile and unsuccessful attempt to separate the Syrian Golan from its geographical nature, religious and family traditions, according to which the Druze have always rejected collusion against their Syrian Arab identity”. He said in a statement: “The Golan will not fall into the trap of the Israeli project to simulate the protection of minorities, which aims only to divide the region into microstates protecting its falsified borders”.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the commander of the UNIFIL forces, General Aroldo Lazaro, warned that further intensification of strikes “could ignite a bigger fire that would engulf the entire region in a preposterous catastrophe”. They called on all sides to exercise maximum restraint, adding that they are in contact with both Israel and Lebanon. Axios quoted an anonymous US official as saying that the incident in the Golan ‘could serve as the trigger for a war’ in which many states and forces in the region could be involved.
Viktor Mikhin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
