AN Israeli strike killed a Hezbollah fighter, Ali Abdul Ali, as he was walking on a rural road earlier this month. The strike blew up a car, leaving a charred ground, and Israel said the strike had dealt a significant blow to its enemy across the border.
But there appeared to be plenty of young men willing to take the place of the warrior Ali in his hometown in southern Lebanon, less than two miles from where he was killed. They were seen crowding around his flower-strewn coffin in footage of his funeral as local grief and anger mixed with the fervor of party supporters. “Hezbollah!” they shouted.
Hezbollah’s persistence has baffled the Biden administration, a key ally of Israel. U.S. efforts to prevent a regional war have included failed attempts to broker ceasefires in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah says it does not want war but will stop firing only if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.
On Thursday, the United States, Qatar and Egypt issued a joint statement urging Hamas and Israel to resume talks as Israel braced for retaliation from Hezbollah and Iran for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in a Beirut suburb and a Hamas leader in Tehran. “There is no more time to waste,” the statement said.
In the war, Hezbollah has become a role model for the Iran-aligned resistance axis, adding to its status as Lebanon’s unrivaled military power, its vast arsenal and its tens of thousands of fighters.
As suffering spreads in Lebanon, Hezbollah has sought to limit the spread of violence and prevent a wider conflict with Israel. “By confining most of the fighting to Lebanon’s southern border, it has created less of a problem than if it had started a major conflict,” said Michael Young, a senior editor at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center.
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“There is a divide in Lebanon between the destruction of the Israeli offensive in the south and the reality that life seems to go on elsewhere in the country,” he said. “Because of that divide and the widespread disgust in Lebanon over the brutality of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah has been able to suppress that discontent,” he said.
The severe impact of war
But Ibrahim Mneimneh, an independent member of Lebanon’s parliament, said the impact of the war in southern Lebanon was severe enough to call into question Hezbollah’s strategy. “I don’t believe they are capable of protecting Lebanon through what they call mutual deterrence,” he said, referring to the idea that neither Israel nor Hezbollah wants to go beyond a certain threshold.
Maintaining the balance Hezbollah seeks is now much more difficult. There were fears that hostilities would escalate in late July, after an attack that killed 12 children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
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Israel and the US blamed Hezbollah, but it denied responsibility. Days later, an Israeli missile hit a residential building in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, and at least six others, including two children.
“We did not escalate, even when our beloved leaders were killed,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah said in a speech on Tuesday. This revealed the dual reality in Lebanon. “For 10 months, there were fronts, martyrs and funerals, and the other part of Lebanon became a place for concerts, recreation, lunches and dinners,” he said.
But the aggression against Shukr, a few miles from downtown Beirut, was different. “Israel is the one that chose escalation with Lebanon,” he said.
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“In a speech that was ostensibly designed to prepare Lebanon for war, the tone has changed,” Young said. “We are in a situation where the rhythm that Hezbollah has been using to try to contain the conflict seems to be no longer possible,” Young said.
The speech focused less on Hezbollah’s role in the constellation of Iranian-backed armed groups and more on explaining to a broader Lebanese audience why Israel is a threat to the region and why Hezbollah’s resistance is necessary. And that’s a difficult thing to do, Young said, because no one in Lebanon wants war.
Citizens are suffering
The destruction of homes and farmland in Lebanon was concentrated along the border with Israel, after months of fighting in which Israeli strikes outnumbered Hezbollah strikes by more than 6 to 1, according to figures up to August 1 compiled by ACLED, an organisation that collects data on the conflict.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, which has killed 114 civilians and non-combatants in Lebanon.
On the other side of the border, more than 60,000 people remain displaced from communities in northern Israel since Hezbollah began hostilities on Oct. 8. Nineteen soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed in attacks by the group. Hundreds of homes have been damaged and tens of thousands of hectares of land have been burned in wildfires sparked by drone and rocket attacks.
In Lebanon, the suffering stretches for miles from the border to Wadi Jilo. Families living in a three-story building that was burned down by an Israeli strike across the street in early June have just returned to their homes.
Workers and painters are trying to make the place habitable again. One of the workers, a Syrian, said he commutes every day to the ghost town close to the front lines. This is because Syrian refugees in Lebanon face discrimination and have difficulty finding people willing to take them in.
A home appliance supplier on the ground floor of the building was destroyed. “How did we escape? I don’t know,” said Mervat Eitawi, 49, who lives on the first floor and spent three days in hospital after the attack with breathing problems.
His son’s arm was burned. There had been bombings before, “but not this bad,” he said. “I hear drones overhead every two hours,” he added.
One of them was heard running in circles as he spoke to reporters last week. He could not bear to leave Wadi Jilo, where his family is, his home. “The war just needs to end, God willing, God willing, God willing,” he said.
Economic crisis
Ibrahim Al Moussawi, a Lebanese member of parliament representing Hezbollah, acknowledged that suffering in the south and mass displacement had put pressure on the movement.
Lebanon, in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis marked by soaring inflation and widespread poverty, can barely afford to help refugees, let alone rebuild areas devastated by conflict without massive foreign aid.
“We would be happy if our situation in Lebanon was in a better or more positive position if it was involved in the war,” he said, adding that Hezbollah was providing assistance to refugees, including rent payments.
The group seeks to balance Lebanon’s differences with its decision to continue fighting, which it calls a moral obligation, a religious obligation, a national obligation, a human responsibility.
Mneimneh, an independent lawmaker, said the important things Hezbollah decides are things that should be discussed in parliament or by the country’s government. “It is our duty to support the Palestinian people who are fighting for their own country and against the genocide that is happening in Gaza,” he said in an interview at his office, referring to Israel’s military offensive.
However, he continued, it is the duty of all Lebanese to come together and discuss the best way to achieve this goal, protecting the country and at the same time supporting the Palestinian struggle. (Thewashintongpost/Z-2)
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