MAJDAL SHAMS (JTA) — A year after a Hezbollah missile slammed into a soccer field here, killing 12 children and turning the quiet Druze town near Israel’s northeastern border into a symbol of mourning, it was once again in the headlines — this time for an unplanned border breach.

Hundreds of Druze residents pushed through the security fence separating the Israeli Golan Heights from Syria last week, rushing toward family members they had not seen in decades.

The breach followed days of fighting across southern Syria between the local Druze population and Bedouin militias backed by Syrian government forces, killing more than 1,100 people last week and displacing over 120,000, according to the United Nations and Syrian monitoring groups.

Many of those who stormed the fence said they were prepared to march all the way to Sweida — the Druze-majority Syrian region that is the epicenter of the bloodshed — to stop the killings themselves. Footage of the massacre of Druze civilians across the border that residents said had been filmed by the perpetrators began circulating on phones. Many in Majdal Shams said the scenes echoed the horror of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught on Israel — only this time, it was happening to their brethren in Syria.

Some accused the Israeli government of not doing enough to stop the violence, despite Israeli strikes against Syrian military targets in both Sweida and Damascus — a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was to protect the Syrian Druze and their “deep blood covenant” with their Israeli counterparts. Others praised the intervention.

Near the fence, men and women called out across the line while others held signs marked with the names of long-lost relatives, hoping someone would recognize them and step forward. Two sisters, separated for 30 years since one married a Syrian man in the 1990s, wept in each other’s arms in front of TV cameras. In another scene, a mother clutched her 48-year-old son, whom she hadn’t seen since he moved to Syria as a teenager.

Three days later, as a shaky ceasefire between the two sides held, a smattering of Majdal Shams residents lingered near the fence. Dalia Shams said that while she was moved to tears by the videos of reunions circulating on social media, she had instructed her children to stay away from the border area.

“I told them, you have a future here. What happens if they close the gate? You’ll be stuck there. There’s no life........

© The Times of Israel