Netanyahu promises Druze leader that Hezbollah will ‘pay a heavy price’ for Majdal Shams attack

Jul 27. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday promised the leader of the Druze community, Sheikh Mowafak Tarif, that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price” for the deaths of at least eleven people in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that he will not allow this murderous attack to simply be forgotten. Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for this that it has not paid so far,” Netanyahu said in a telephone conversation with Tarif, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Netanyahu told Tarif that he was “deeply horrified” by “Hezbollah’s murder of children and innocent people” and expressed his “heartfelt condolences on behalf of all of Israel” to the families of the victims and the entire Druze community.

Netanyahu, who is on an official visit to the United States, has brought forward his return to Israel after hearing the news of the deaths at Majdal Shams and has already called a security cabinet meeting for Monday at 4:00 p.m. at the Israeli Armed Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, Tarif himself expressed his “deep shock” at the “disaster” at Majdal Shams. “It was a cruel and murderous terrorist attack against innocent children who were playing football. It is impossible to imagine and describe the horror of the children and their body parts scattered on the grass,” he said.

“A country cannot afford to see its citizens harmed. This has been happening for the past nine months in the northern settlements. Tonight has crossed any red or black line,” he said.

The Druze are a secretive religious minority with a presence in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. In Israel they number around 150,000 people, less than 2 percent of the population.