VOX POPULI: What the Lebanese really think of Hezbollah , but are afraid to say 6 August 06
ý“Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar.
“They are ýshooting from between our houses.” “Please,’’ he added, “write that
in your newspaper.” ýMr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters in groups of two and three
had come into Ain Ebel, ýless than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the
fighting has occurred. They were ýusing it as a base to shoot rockets, he said,
and the Israelis fired back.ý
One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and
feared ýretribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to
leave Bint Jbail. ý
ý“This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah,
she said. ýý(New York Times, July ýþ27þý, ýþ2006þý). ý
ý“A younger man came up to me and, when we were out of earshot of others, said
that ýHezbollah had kept bombs in the basement of the mosque, but that two days
earlier a ýtruck had taken the cache away. It was common knowledge in Sidon, he
said, and ýeveryone was expecting the mosque to be hit. When, the previous
evening, displaced ýpeople from the south had gathered on the grounds, they had
been warned away. ý
ý“Everybody wants to end this Hezbollah regime, but nobody can say anything,”
the ýyoung man said. He told me that he had been to the United States. “I know
how the ýpeople are there, what they eat and how they live and think, and we
don’t have anything ýlike that here. We would like to live like that, without
all this” - he waved toward the ýruined mosque - “normally, the way you do.” He
hoped that the Israelis would be ýsuccessful. When another Lebanese man came up
and joined us, he stopped talking. ýBefore we parted, I asked him if he was a
Christian. He looked surprised. “No,” he said. ýý“I am Muslim. Sunni.” ý
ý(The New Yorker Magazine – July ýþ8þý, ýþ2006þý. Letter from Beirut: The Battle
for Lebanon.ýby Jon Lee Anderson)ý
The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be
named ýsaid he was less than ýþ400þm from the block when it was obliterated.
"Hezbollah came in ýto launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was
blasted by Israeli jets," he said. ý
ý"Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis.
Then it was ýtotally devastated. "It was carnage. Two innocent people died in
that incident, but it was ýso lucky it was not more." The release of the images
[of Hezbollah firing its Katyushas ýfrom under a residential apartment building
in Wadi Shahrour] comes as Hezbollah faces ýcriticism for allegedly using
innocent civilians as "human shields". [UN humanitarian ýchief] Mr. Egeland
blasted Hezbollah as "cowards" for operating among civilians. ýý"When I was in
Lebanon, in the Hezbollah heartland, I said Hezbollah must stop this ýcowardly
blending in among women and children," he said. ý
ý(Photos that Damn Hezbollah. Chris Link, Herald Sun, July ýþ31þý, ýþ2006þý)ý
The surgeon led a group of journalists over what remained [of his hospital in
Tyre]: ýmangled debris, shredded walls and a roof punched through by an Israeli
shell. "Look ýwhat they did to this place," Dr. Fouad Fatah said, shaking his
head. "Why in the world ýwould the Israelis target a hospital?" The probable
answer was found a few hours later in ýa field nearby. Hidden in the tall grass
were the burned remnants of a rocket-launcher. ýConfronted with the evidence,
Dr. Fatah admitted his hospital could have been used as a ýsite from which to
fire rockets into Israel. "What choice do we have? We need to fight ýback from
somewhere," he said, tapping his foot on the ground. "This is Hezbollah's
ýheartland." (Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada. Saturday, August ýþ05þý,
ýþ2006þý)ý
ý"We've been preparing ourselves for this fight for the last five years. We can
fight this for ýmuch longer," said Abu Ismail, a local Hezbollah leader near the
village of Bint Jbeil ýwho uses a nom de guerre, like most of his fellow
fighters. Residents of the cluster of ývillages closest to the Israeli border,
Hezbollah's most loyal supporters, helped stow the ýweapons away. But as the
conflict continues, there is an undercurrent of anger among ýsome residents.
"Hezbollah are using [us] as human shields," said Rima Khouri, gesturing
ýoverhead as Israeli warplanes sliced through the sky. The Lebanese Christian
woman fled ýfrom her village of Ain Abel to one of the swelling refugee shelters
in the city of Tyre. ýShe was one of few people to speak freely about her anger
at Hezbollah and their strategy ýof firing rockets into Israel from civilian
areas." Their protection comes with a heavy ýprice. We want nothing to do with
them," she said. (Sonia Verma, National Post, ýCanada. Saturday, August ýþ05þý,
ýþ2006þý)ý
Nasser Kareem shared her sentiments. During a pitched battle in his village of
Bint Jbeil ýlast Thursday, the ýþ48þý-year-old dentist watched from his kitchen
window as Hezbollah ýfighters dragged a rocket launcher across the torn street
in front of his house. A few ýminutes later, he heard four successive blasts.
Kareem barely managed to cover his four-ýyear-old son's ears before the rockets
were fired. His own ears are still ringing. "Five ýminutes after they fired the
rockets, the Israelis started bombing," he recalled from the ýsafety of a
shelter in Beirut. "They are making us magnets for the Israelis," he said.
ýý(Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada. Saturday, August ýþ05þý, ýþ2006þý)ý
Most villagers bristle at the suggestion that Israel has been targeting anybody
but ýcivilians. Anger boiled over last week when a shelter in Qana was hit,
killing ýþ29þý people, ýmost of them children." What have they done to deserve
this? Is this a military target?" ýwept Mohamad Chalhoub, clutching the lifeless
body of his daughter. Local officials said ýthere were no weapons or rockets in
the house where the children slept in Qana, no ýwarning before the bomb fell.
But the next day, the same Lebanese Red Cross team that ýdug out the children's
bodies stumbled across the shreds of more rocket launchers in a ývillage nearby.
One was found deep inside a fruit orchard. Another was found wedged ýbetween two
houses. In this part of Lebanon, Hezbollah still rules the streets. (Sonia
ýVerma, National Post, Canada. Saturday, August ýþ05þý, ýþ2006þý)ý