Israeli mourners shouted down government ministers on Sunday at a funeral for 10 of the 12 children and young people killed when a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights. The attack also wounded dozens more.
“Now you come here? Ten months you didn’t come!” a man in a military uniform shouted at Housing Minister Nir Barkat and Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, as the crowd applauded.
“One drone hits Tel Aviv, and you turn Yemen upside down! Why is Beirut still there? Why is there still a Beirut, at all?” the man asked angrily.
Israel conducted a major airstrike on the Hodeida port in Yemen last week after an Iranian-backed Houthi drone killed an Israeli man in Tel Aviv.
“Months, they’ve been shelling us. My child cries in the morning!” the man continued, shouting that he had been on reserve duty for ten months. He swatted away Barkat’s hand as the minister approached him. “Our soul is ripped apart here!” he said.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has repeatedly called for war with Hezbollah, tried to appease the crowd but was similarly harangued. “We want quiet and we don’t get it!” another resident shouted. “We’re tired of your promises!”
Another man present called Finance Minister Smotrich and fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir “racists” and blamed them for the deadly attack.
