Majdal Shams, the village on the slopes of Mount Hermon, means "tower of the sun" in Arabic. The sun did not rise again after the outcry of the mothers and fathers who lost their beloved children who were only playing soccer, as is customary on Saturdays in Hezbollah's vicious attack on Majdal Shams on Saturday.
The images shocked the entire country and not just the Druze community which finds itself on several fronts in this ongoing war. Its combat soldiers fight alongside Jews on the battlefield in the Gaza Strip, they stand firm in the villages under threat on the northern front, and now children have been dragged into this war in a cruel unbearably unimaginable tragedy.
Many Druze residents had decided not to evacuate from their communities in the north, since the beginning of the war because they believed we should stand firm on our land in any battle or war, own our land through our presence and fight for our existence.
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The funeral of children killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on Majdal Shams
(Photo: Yair Kraus )
Villages under fire such as Horfish, Peki'in, Beit Jan and the Golan settlements have been subjected to the tough reality of war. Mothers with anxiety attacks as children cry in fear in the more than nine months of war.
If you thought that the government appreciates or even respects the community, you would be wrong. The same Finance Minister who said after the disaster in Majdal Shams that revenge should be taken by eliminating [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah, is the one who decided to scrap a critical bill that would have legalized the use of electricity in Druze communities and left the Druze in the dark by disconnecting over 10,000 Druze homes from "illegal" electricity outlets after decades of neglect of infrastructure and construction.
The Druze community is the only sector that does not have a five-year development plan since the beginning of the year. This leads the new generation to feel frustration and alienation towards the country that we were raised to love and nurture. Although we see the leaders and politicians come to cry with us in the cemeteries, they are absent in real life where it counts.
Einav HalabiMajdal Shams is a populated village without any development plan or infrastructure. There is no adequate response to emergencies like the one we experienced. Residents who were separated from a large part of their friends and family in Syria after the 1967 Six Day-War, accept the complex reality and do not give up. The disaster has left them mute, speechless, and afraid of what is yet to come. I hope that the government will finally embrace the Druze in life and not just in death because we have no other country.