By
Angela Corrias, owner of
Chasing the Unexpected
There is something visceral about Southern Lebanon.
Driving up along the harsh mountain ranges that
frame its country lanes, around possibly every bend
you can find pictures of young men. Nothing fancy,
nothing movie-star-like, just a simple photo
captioned with their name and the words the
population has devoted to them. Words of eternal
gratitude for their sacrifice in the name of freedom
for their country.
It’s 1978, only thirty years after the Israeli
militia has occupied Palestine, when the same
military forces launch a new campaign and occupy
Lebanon. Only here they didn’t find defenceless
farmers who had no idea of what was going on, they
found an entire population unnerved, uncomfortable
and worried about the ongoing occupation next door.
Lebanese have witnessed first-hand the calamity fell
upon the Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of
refugees had arrived in the country after the Nakba
of 1948, the tragedy that brought to the creation of
the State of Israel. With all this in mind, Lebanese
had no intention of letting their country become the
“new Palestine”, no Lebanese was willing to lead the
same life Palestinians were leading in their refugee
camps.
In 1982, four years after the occupation, a
grassroots popular resistance started raising and
fighting back against the occupation forces. By
1984, the popular resistance started acting under
the name of Hezbollah, following the leadership of
Sayyed Abbas Mousawi (killed in 1992), Imad Fayez
Moghniyyeh (killed in a car bomb in 2008), and
Hassan Nasrallah, alive and adored.
Men and women whose only purpose in life was setting
their country free fought with any means against the
foreign occupiers, young men and fathers sacrificed
their life only to make Israelis leave. Martyrs such
as that little more than a kid who blew himself up
in the headquarter of Israeli commando in Tyre,
determining their withdrawal from the city, his eyes
still watching over the empty ground where from that
day nothing has been built. Every single person had
a role in what to the world seemed an impossible
task.
No wonder why today Hezbollah is one of the main
government parties, no wonder why Hezbollah fighters
and martyrs are remembered every single day, no
wonder why Hassan Nasrallah is worshipped in
Southern Lebanon. ”Beirut government was ready to
give up the South,” was on the most common refrains
I could hear all around. “After Israel occupied
Beirut in 1982, the central government wanted to
negotiate their liberation and exchange it with the
South. Even in 2006 the government was negotiating
with Israel to let them occupy the Litani river from
Nabatiyeh up to Maroun el Ras, near the border, to
make them stop bombing Beirut.”
Feelings, emotions, details, battles, names that
only locals can know made me realize how biased and
distorted our mainstream media and education system
are. I understand every country has its fair share
of censorship, but creating false enemies has the
only result of making people live out of fear, and
as far as Europe is concerned, it’s fear of our own
neighbours, friend countries and important
commercial partners.
The occupation ended in 2000, and after 22 years of
fighting, war strategies and bombings, the foreign
army was forced out. Only in the shelling on
Abassiyeh, in 1978, 400 people lost their lives, in
Cana in 1996 more than a hundred. When the region
was still wounded and struggling for reconstruction,
in 2006 Israeli bombings started all over again:
“They bombed with no mercy,” remembers my friend
Leila who at the time was 14. “A hundred bombings
every hour, in some villages, from Cana to the deep
South, they bombed every single house, 1400 people
were killed in 33 days, thousands heavily injured.”
Leila and her family lived in the United States and
moved back to their hometown in 2004, to find
themselves at war only two years later. “I know it’s
a horrible thing to say,” goes on Salam, Leila’s
sister, “but every time we saw an Israeli airplane
we just hoped to hear the bomb, because it would
have meant it hadn’t fallen on us.” They escaped by
car towards the North that was less hit, to a city
that today takes an hour to reach, and seven during
the war. When they got back they saw their house was
not bombed, but their neighbours’ was.
To visit the landmark of Lebanese resistance, we had
to get closer to the border with Occupied Palestine,
up to Mount A’mel, in Mleeta, small village resting
at 1060 meters above sea level, that apart from
housing the tombs of prophets, saints and kings of
the past, has also been Hezbollah stronghold during
the occupation.
There is one thing you will sense from minute one:
visiting the Museum of Lebanese Resistance doesn’t
classify as the standard sightseeing experience.
Scattered all over the entrance, in a random yet
precise manner, is the most diverse war equipment,
vehicles, tanks and weapons that the Israeli army
abandoned when fleeing the country. The Merkava Mark
4 tank, symbol of Israeli military power, was sunk
in dirt with its muzzle knotted, as a sign of all
possible contempt to an army that caused so much
suffering, death and destruction. This is the first
sight that awaits visitors, aptly named “The Abyss”,
because this is what the message is all about, the
abyss every country falls into when a war ravages
its soul.
The mount still wrapped up in its morning haze, we
entered the bushy trail where fighters set their
home, their departure point towards the occupied
buffer zone, their shelter and their mosque. We went
past rifles, guns, old boots, rickety motorbikes,
rusty digging tools, tombs and corners for prayer,
all things that in a way or the other helped them
carry on with the resistance. The cave I visited was
chosen by the partisans as bunker when Mleeta became
Hezbollah main stronghold. It was dug with the most
rudimentary tools under the most difficult weather
conditions, both winter chill and summer blazing
heat. It’s really the case to say that longing for a
free country was what kept them moving.
I admit, more than once I felt a sense of unease.
I’m not familiar with war talk, even less with war
equipment. I despise anything military, any war
threat fills me with dismay, and I’ve never bought
the myth that war was necessary as it never is, but
passing through that pathway, crossing the tunnel
used as shelter, and picturing the kind of life
those kids (because they were hardly older than
that) led just because they wanted to defend their
inalienable right to live in their own country with
no foreign occupation, made me share their feelings.
How could I not? Should someone invade my house, I
would fight back in any way I can, caring less than
nothing about what the rest of the world wants to
define me.
Israel is still occupying the Shebaa Farms in
Lebanon, but no settlement has been built as
Hezbollah will never let that happen.
From the museum we climbed up on the top of a hill
overlooking former occupation posts and the later
liberated areas. The region looks calm, you could
say a corner of heaven, if you didn’t know of the
bombings and the battles those white stones and
green fields have witnessed.
Now, there is no leaf in Southern Lebanon that moves
without Hezbollah permission, the military wing of
the party is constantly on training, in the region
everybody is aware of its power, even Israeli
leaders admit that when Hassan Nasrallah says he
will take action, there’s no doubt he will, and at
the same time, when he says he won’t, he can be
trusted. And Nasrallah has already said Hezbollah
militia has defence purposes, but in case of a new
attack or occupation from the Israeli army, it will
not take them 16 years to bring it to an end.
