Source URL: = http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38975


MAROUN AL-RAS, Southern Lebanon, Aug 22 (IPS) - It has been especially difficult for Ali Nasrallah to tend to his garden this time of year. Nasrallah, a 40-year-old construction worker from Taybeh in southern Lebanon, lost his mother, father, brother and sister during last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel.

"Every time I water my garden, I remember the atrocity that happened to my family," he says. "It is a deep wound on my soul."

Almost exactly a year ago, Israeli soldiers arrived at the Nasrallahs' modest two-floor home. As Ali's sister stood near the small garden that marks the home's entrance, the soldiers tossed a grenade at the house, killing her instantly, Nasrallah says.

The soldiers then shot his brother at point-blank range and severed his father's arms and feet as the rest of the family watched, he says. Finally, the soldiers emptied cartridges into his mother. The bodies and limbs lay there, at the foot of the garden, for almost two weeks. When villagers returned to Taybeh after the end of the war they found the decomposed bodies and a slick of congealed blood on the marble patio.

Ali Nasrallah, a muscular figure with a bronze tan, can barely contain his emotions. "My father and mother were 81 years of age. What was the purpose? I no longer believe in God. I don't believe in religion." At his feet, a cantaloupe-sized crater, where the grenade fell, mars the otherwise smooth marble around the garden.

"Who cares about my family?" he asks, his voice shaking. "The UN? World opinion? Does anyone among the millions of Americans care?" Nasrallah, who like the rest of his family was a civilian, adds: "My aim in life now is to stand against Israeli aggression if it ever happens again. I promise, I will become a member of the resistance." In southern Lebanon that means Hezbollah.

In every village and town in the south of the country -- the area most heavily bombed by Israel -- Lebanese tell similar tales of deceased loved ones and destroyed homes. Many who never took up arms before are now pledging to join Hezbollah and fight Israel.

While some analysts point to Hezbollah's heavy losses and weakened infrastructure because of last year's hostilities, most Lebanese here view the war as a victory for Hezbollah, and insist that many have been drawn to the group due to their experience of the war. "There were 2,000 resistance fighters before," Ali Nasrallah says, "but now there are ten times more."

Abbas Fares, mayor of Maroun al-Ras, a border town that was the scene of heavy fighting during the war, declares that "there is no comparison; the resistance is much, much stronger now."

Fares' sister and brother-in-law, both civilians, were killed when Israeli ordnance hit their home at the edge of town. Almost every house in Maroun al-Ras was damaged in the war, and 82 houses were destroyed outright. Fares says that many here who fled during the war now insist that they will remain in their homes and fight should hostilities flare up again.

"I am an old man, but even I will fight like the young people," Fares says. "I have a son who lost an arm and a leg. I thank God I now have five sons in the resistance. I encouraged my sons to join the resistance."

In all 1,280 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 5,000 were wounded in last year's conflict. Shia Muslims, most of whom support Hezbollah and are in large numbers in the southern and eastern areas of the country, bore the brunt of the violence. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Lebanon's infrastructure was heavily damaged. According to a UN estimate, the war cost Lebanon nearly 15 billion dollars, and has left a devastated economy in its
wake.

Hezbollah and foreign governments like Iran, Qatar and Kuwait have undertaken to rebuild the destroyed areas of the south, and construction crews have become almost as ubiquitous as the posters of martyrs that dot the landscape. But crumbled bridges and piles of rubble still blot the countryside.

Everywhere in the south, the Shia praise Hezbollah for preventing further destruction and for what they term the "divine victory" over Israel. Thousands recently gathered in Dahiyeh, a poor, predominately Shia suburb of Beirut, to hear Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah commemorate the one-year anniversary of the end of the war.

As Nasrallah spoke from a giant screen, rows of yellow Hezbollah flags were raised, and the crowd chanted victory slogans. Nearby, Hezbollah has established a museum that displays Israeli booty and a re-created wartime bunker. The museum offers a video game for the willing to have a go at defeating the Israelis.


In a country historically fraught with violence, many Lebanese fear that they are merely living in a brief interlude between wars. The Lebanese army is mired in a fight with Fatah al-Islam, a militant Sunni Islamist group, and in the course of fighting the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared has been completely destroyed.

Two members of parliament were assassinated in the months since the end of the war, and a Hezbollah-backed general strike brought the country to a standstill in early January.

The U.S. has poured economic, political and military support to the Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, in an effort to create a counterweight to Hezbollah and the support it garners in the south.

Karam Karam, analyst at the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, an independent think tank, says "we are dancing at the mouth of a volcano. We don't know when it will erupt."

While a pall of trepidation hangs over Beirut and much of Lebanon, many Shia of the south remain inspired by the "divine victory", and are angry with the governments they feel are responsible for killing their loved ones. "America is not helping the Lebanese people, it is helping the Siniora regime," says Fares.

"Israel's aim is to occupy my land," he says. "I will resist with everything I own. I have bought arms -- and I don't have any problem using them."

Others, like Ali Nasrallah, have decided to resist in their own way until the next war. "I decided not to leave here. I stayed, and I fell in love with a woman. I tied the knot because I want to start a family."

He pauses for a moment, and then adds quietly, "I won't let the Israelis wipe out my family name." (END/2007)
No Trackbacks

Google Ads

Robert Fisk reports from the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, northern Lebanon

05/24/07 "
The Independent
" -- -- It is a place of Palestinian fury - and almost as much Palestinian blood. The bandage-swaddled children whimpering in pain, frowning at the strange,
unfatherly doctors, the middle-aged woman staring at us with one eye, a set of tubes running into her gashed-open stomach, a series of bleak-faced, angry,
young men, their bodies and legs torn apart.

Source URL = http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2578478.ece

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

BEIRUT - Sectarian political fissures are widening in Lebanon nearly one month after a United Nations brokered ceasefire went into affect, due in part to
a muted political battle being waged internally between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government as both attempt to show displaced Lebanese residents that
they are committed to rebuilding their lives and their homes.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34687 No Trackbacks

Google Ads

While we in this country are subjected to endless coverage of fake bomb plots and a ten year old dead white girl case, the 33 Day War has dramatically altered
the Middle East and the World. The slaves of Lebanon took the full wrath of their master and did not blink. This is a powerful turning point in the balance
of power and marks the beginning of the end of subjugation.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

“To confront this accursed plan, to thwart the goals of this war, to fight the battle to liberate, what remains of our land and our prisoners, I state categorically
under no circumstances will we accept any term that is insulting to our country, our people, or our resistance. We will not accept any formula at the expense
of the national interest, national sovereignty and national independence, especially after all these sacrifices, no matter how long the confrontation lasts
and no matter how numerous the sacrifices may be. Our main and true slogan is “Honor First.” --Sheik Hassan Nasrallah

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

With a few words, a Lebanese army officer destroyed, the day before yesterday [17 August0], the illusion that Israel had achieved anything in this war.

At a televised Lebanese army parade that was also broadcast on Israeli TV , the officer read a prepared text to his assembled troops, who were about to
be deployed along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

Israeli forces on Saturday carried out a flagrant violation of the ceasefire along the Lebanon-Israel border, as dozens of military commandos attacked the
village of Boudai, near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon. The raid was the first full-scale breach in the ceasefire between Israeli and Hezbollah
forces in south Lebanon which took effect on Monday, August 14.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have returned to what is left of their homes in Lebanon in defiance of Israeli warnings and threats to stay away. Openly
expressing their support for Hezbollah, residents have rushed to reclaim their land in a display of mass opposition to US-Israeli aggression.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

Across Lebanon, they are systematically lifting the tons of rubble of old roofs and apartment blocks and finding families below, their arms wrapped around
each other in the moment of death as their homes were beaten down upon them by the Israeli air force.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads

Scottish lawyers and activists, Lebanese residents in Scotland and the Lebanese government have joined forces to bring Tony Blair before the Scottish courts,
charged with war crimes for aiding and abetting the Zionist onslaught against Lebanon.

» Read More

No Trackbacks

Google Ads