Thousands of Druze men and women, many dressed in black, arrived for the funeral Sunday of several of the 12 youths killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli annexed Golan Heights the day before.
The Israeli military said they were struck by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.
Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years.
Druze follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Early on Sunday morning, Druze women gathered around the coffins covered in white shrouds ahead of the funeral.
Several women dressed in black abayas cried as they laid flowers on the caskets, an AFP correspondent reported.
Many held pink flowers, while hundreds of men dressed in traditional Druze attire, including white caps topped with red, arrived for the ceremonies.
“Every night, every day, every minute we are worried. It’s been like this for 10 months,” Laith, a 42-year-old nurse who gave only his first name, told AFP.
“Everybody you see here is worried all the time,” he said. “We are so very sad. We lost children, children playing soccer.”
Under scorching sun, religious leaders led hundreds at a prayer meeting in a local municipal building, with the entire town at a standstill.
Shops closed, and checkpoints were set up at the entrance of every village in the Golan.
Israel’s army called Saturday’s rocket strike “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered war in Gaza.
In Majdal Shams many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
That October 7 attack resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack
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Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack
- Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years
Israeli medics say 3 people were shot and killed at the West Bank-Jordan border crossing
- Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service confirmed the toll
- Israeli police say ‘shooter’ killed, without providing further details
JERUSALEM: Three people have been shot and killed near the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli first responders said Sunday.
Israeli police said the shooter was killed, without providing further details. The border crossing is used by Palestinians, Israelis and international tourists. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service was at the scene and confirmed the toll.
The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Chased away by Israeli settlers, these Palestinians returned to a village in ruins
- The villagers of Khirbet Zanuta had long faced harassment and violence from settlers
- The plight of Khirbet Zanuta is also an example of the limited effectiveness of international sanctions as a means of reducing settler violence in the West Bank
KHIRBET ZANUTA: An entire Palestinian community fled their tiny West Bank village last fall after repeated threats from Israeli settlers with a history of violence. Then, in a rare endorsement of Palestinian land rights, Israel’s highest court ruled this summer the displaced residents of Khirbet Zanuta were entitled to return under the protection of Israeli forces.
But their homecoming has been bittersweet. In the intervening months, nearly all the houses in the village, a health clinic and a school were destroyed — along with the community’s sense of security in the remote desert land where they have farmed and herded sheep for decades.
Roughly 40% of former residents have so far chosen not to return. The 150 or so that have come back are sleeping outside the ruins of their old homes. They say they are determined to rebuild – and to stay – even as settlers once again try to intimidate them into leaving and a court order prevents them from any new construction.
“There is joy, but there are some drawbacks,” said Fayez Suliman Tel, the head of the village council and one of the first to come back to see the ransacked village – roofs seemingly blown off buildings, walls defaced by graffiti.
“The situation is extremely miserable,” Tel said, “but despite that, we are steadfast and staying in our land, and God willing, this displacement will not be repeated.”
The Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank said in a statement to The Associated Press it had not received any claims of Israeli vandalism of the village, and that it was taking measures to “ensure security and public order” during the villagers’ return.
“The Palestinians erected a number of structural components illegally at the place, and in that regard enforcement proceedings were undertaken in accordance with law,” the statement said.
The villagers of Khirbet Zanuta had long faced harassment and violence from settlers. But after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas that launched the war in Gaza, they said they received explicit death threats from Israelis living in an unauthorized outpost up the hill called Meitarim Farm. The outpost is run by Yinon Levi, who has been sanctioned by the U.S., UK, EU and Canada for menacing his Palestinian neighbors.
The villagers say they reported the threats and attacks to Israeli police, but said they got little help. Fearing for their lives, at the end of October, they packed up whatever they could carry and left.
Though settler violence had been rising even before the war under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it has been turbocharged ever since Oct. 7. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence since then, according to the United Nations, and very few have returned home.
Khirbet Zanuta stands as a rare example. It is unclear if any other displaced community has been granted a court's permission to return since the start of the war.
Even though residents have legal protection Israel's highest court, they still have to contend with Levi and other young men from the Meitarim Farm outpost trying to intimidate them.
Shepherd Fayez Fares Al Samareh, 57, said he returned to Khirbet Zanuta two weeks ago to find that his house had been bulldozed by settlers. The men of his family have joined him in bringing their flocks back home, he said, but conditions in the village are grave.
“The children have not returned and the women as well. Where will they stay? Under the sun?” he said.
Settler surveillance continues: Al Samareh said that every Friday and Saturday, settlers arrive to the village, photographing residents.
Videos taken by human rights activists and obtained by The Associated Press show settlers roaming around Khirbet Zanuta last month, taking pictures of residents as Israeli police look on.
By displacing small villages, rights groups say West Bank settlers like Levi are able to accumulate vast swaths of land, reshaping the map of the occupied territory that Palestinians hope to include in their homeland as part of any two-state solution.
The plight of Khirbet Zanuta is also an example of the limited effectiveness of international sanctions as a means of reducing settler violence in the West Bank. The US recently targeted Hashomer Yosh, a government-funded group that sends volunteers to work on West Bank farms, both legal and illegal, with sanctions. Hashomer Yosh sent volunteers to Levi’s outpost, a Nov. 13 Facebook post said.
“After all 250 Palestinian residents of Khirbet Zanuta were forced to leave, Hashomer Yosh volunteers fenced off the village to prevent the residents from returning,” a U.S. State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said last week.
Neither Hashomer Yosh nor Levi responded to a request for comment on intrusions into the village since residents returned. But Levi claimed in a June interview with AP that the land was his, and admitted to taking part in clearing it of Palestinians, though he denied doing so violently.
“Little by little, you feel when you drive on the roads that everyone is closing in on you,” he said at the time. “They’re building everywhere, wherever they want. So you want to do something about it.”
The legal rights guaranteed to Khirbet Zanuta's residents only go so far. Under the terms of the court ruling that allowed them to return, they are forbidden from building new structures across the roughly 1 square kilometer village. The land, the court ruled, is part of an archaeological zone, so any new structures are at risk of demolition.
Distraught but not deterred, the villagers are repairing badly damaged homes, the health clinic and the EU-funded school — by whom, they do not know for sure.
“We will renovate these buildings so that they are qualified to receive students before winter sets in,” Khaled Doudin, the governor of the Hebron region that includes Khirbet Zanuta, said as he stood in the bulldozed school.
“And after that we will continue to rehabilitate it,” he said, “so that we do not give the occupation the opportunity to demolish it again.”
Shooting attack at the West Bank-Jordan border crossing kills 3 Israelis
- Israeli officials say three people were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan
- Israel says the gunman approached the bridge crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant
- Jordanian authorities say they are investigating the shooting at King Hussein crossing
JERUSALEM: Three people were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli officials said.
The military said the gunman approached the King Hussein Bridge - also known as the Allenby Bridge Crossing - from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said the three men who were killed were in their 50s.
The Allenby crossing is mainly used by Israelis, Palestinians and international tourists.
The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
UAE foreign minister discusses bilateral relations with UK counterpart
- It is the UK foreign secretary's first official visit to the UAE since his appointment in July
DUBAI: UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan held talks with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Abu Dhabi.
According to WAM, the UAE state news agency, the ministers discussed the relationship between the UK and UAE, including strengthening bilateral trade and investment ties, as well as close coordination on regional security and humanitarian issues.
The ministers also agreed on the importance of de-escalation in attempts to achieve stability in the region.
Sheikh Abdullah and Lammy looked forward to staying in close contact, WAM reported.
It is the UK foreign secretary’s first official visit to the UAE since his appointment in July.
Libyan authorities order detention of militia leader over killing of UN-sanctioned human trafficker
- Libya has emerged as a major conduit for people from Africa and the Middle East fleeing wars and poverty and hoping to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea
CAIRO: Libya’s chief prosecutor ordered the detention of a militia leader and one of his aides pending an investigation into the killing of one of the country’s most notorious human traffickers.
Mohamed Bahroun, commander of the First Support Battalion and an influential militia leader, as well as one of his associates, handed themselves over after allegations surfaced about their role in last week’s killing of Abdel-Rahman Milad in the capital, Tripoli.
The office of General Prosecutor Al-Sediq Al-Sour said in a statement late Saturday that prosecutors ordered both men to remain detained after they were interrogated and shown evidence of their involvement in Milad’s slaying.
Milad, sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council and imprisoned in Libya on trafficking charges, was shot and killed on Sep. 1 while in his vehicle in the Sayyad area, in the western part of Tripoli.
The late human trafficker and Bahroun hailed from the western town of Zawiya where Milad commanded a notorious coast guard unit. Both rose to prominence during the chaos after a NATO-backed uprising — that turned into civil war — toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The oil-rich nation has since then split between two administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. Both Milad and Bahroun held government positions in the lawless western part of the Mediterranean country.
Since then, Libya has emerged as a major conduit for people from Africa and the Middle East fleeing wars and poverty and hoping to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
In June 2018, the Security Council imposed sanctions on Milad and five other leaders of criminal networks for their alleged engagement in trafficking migrants and others from Libya. At the time, Milad was described in a UN report as the head of a coast guard unit in Zawiya “that is consistently linked with violence against migrants and other human smugglers” from rival gangs.
UN experts monitoring sanctions claimed Milad and other coast guard members “are directly involved in the sinking of migrant boats” by opening fire to intercept the vessels.
The intercepted migrants are held in government-run detention centers rife with practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to UN-commissioned investigators. The abuse often accompanies attempts to extort money from the families of the imprisoned migrants before releasing them or allowing them to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats to Europe.
Milad had denied any links to human smuggling and said traffickers wear uniforms similar to those of his men. He was jailed for about six months between October 2020 and April 2021 on human trafficking and fuel smuggling charges.
