Search

Experts: No doubt that Hezbollah behind Majdal Shams massacre

Independent analysts confirm that Iranian-made rocket was fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah, killing 12 children and teens in Druze town.

By World Israel News Staff

Military and weapons experts confirmed that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group fired the rocket that killed 12 children and teens and wounded dozens more in the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams on Saturday.

The analysis comes after the terror group has falsely claimed that it is not responsible for the attack, an assertion that some Western media outlets have uncritically repeated.

Notably, Hezbollah originally took credit for the attack, which came among a massive barrage of at least 40 rockets on northern Israel.

Hezbollah then abruptly changed its stance once the identify of the victims – Druze children and youth playing soccer – became public knowledge.

The terror group continues to take responsibility for dozens of other bombings targeting northern Israel within the same time frame, improbably denying that just one rocket out of the large salvo was not fired by them.

Fragments of the rocket, the shape of the crater, and pieces of shrapnel recovered from victims’ bodies all indicated that the projectile used in the attack was an Iranian-made Falaq rocket, which makes up much of Hezbollah’s arsenal.

“The evidence that we can see from the ground … is much more consistent with that of a rocket artillery of the type and size of the Falaq,” Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher with Human Rights Watch, confirmed to the Associated Press.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a weapons analyst, told APthat the rocket was certainly fired from Lebanon, based on photographs of the impact site. He explained that the shape of the crater and the damage sustained by a fence around the soccer field showed that the explosive had been fired from the north.

However, some experts and residents of the Druze town said they believed the attack on civilians was not intentional, but rather a misfire that had meant to target nearby military assets.

“For sure, it was not targeting Majdal Shams. There are many Israeli military bases around the town. I expect this threat was heading their way,” Nabeeh Abu Saleh, a paramedic from Majdal Shams who treated victims at the scene, told AP.

“These kinds of things happen even with the best-trained forces,” said Weir. “So it is possible that, given that this is an unguided piece of rocket, that this was a mistake.”