VOX POPULI: WHAT THE LEBANESE REALLY THINK OF HEZBOLLAH,

BUT ARE AFRAID TO SAY

Compiles By: NEAL Media Committee

August 13/06

·        "We need to live, and this is one of the best ways to feel alive," said Rossana, 23, sitting at the bar [in the mountain resort town of Broummana] along with her friend. "Since I opened my eyes as a baby, Lebanon has been at war, so I am not going to close my eyes and not live because of this war." Rossana used to work in Beirut, and said she feels sad that Beirut "died" and she is now confined to staying close to her home in Broummana. "We don't feel the war here, and I hope we never do, as it is not really our war, it is Hizbullah's war with Israel," said Rossana, who like many interviewed in Broummana, did not support Hizbullah, and blamed them for "dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war." "I feel sorry for the people in the South, but I am not going to stop my life for them," she said. (The Daily Star, Sat. Aug. 12, 2006).

·        The surgeon led a group of journalists over what remained [of his hospital in Tyre]: mangled debris, shredded walls and a roof punched through by an Israeli shell. "Look what they did to this place," Dr. Fouad Fatah said, shaking his head. "Why in the world would the Israelis target a hospital?" The probable answer was found a few hours later in a field nearby. Hidden in the tall grass were the burned remnants of a rocket-launcher. Confronted with the evidence, Dr. Fatah admitted his hospital could have been used as a site from which to fire rockets into Israel. "What choice do we have? We need to fight back from somewhere," he said, tapping his foot on the ground. "This is Hezbollah's heartland." (Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada.  Saturday, August 05, 2006)

• "We've been preparing ourselves for this fight for the last five years. We can fight this for much longer," said Abu Ismail, a local Hezbollah leader near the village of Bint Jbeil who uses a nom de guerre, like most of his fellow fighters. Residents of the cluster of villages closest to the Israeli border, Hezbollah's most loyal supporters, helped stow the weapons away. But as the conflict continues, there is an undercurrent of anger among some residents. "Hezbollah are using [us] as human shields," said Rima Khouri, gesturing overhead as Israeli warplanes sliced through the sky. The Lebanese Christian woman fled from her village of Ain Abel to one of the swelling refugee shelters in the city of Tyre. She was one of few people to speak freely about her anger at Hezbollah and their strategy of firing rockets into Israel from civilian areas." Their protection comes with a heavy price. We want nothing to do with them," she said. (Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada.  Saturday, August 05, 2006)

• Nasser Kareem shared her sentiments. During a pitched battle in his village of Bint Jbeil last Thursday, the 48-year-old dentist watched from his kitchen window as Hezbollah fighters dragged a rocket launcher across the torn street in front of his house. A few minutes later, he heard four successive blasts. Kareem barely managed to cover his four-year-old son's ears before the rockets were fired. His own ears are still ringing. "Five minutes after they fired the rockets, the Israelis started bombing," he recalled from the safety of a shelter in Beirut. "They are making us magnets for the Israelis," he said. (Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada.  Saturday, August 05, 2006)

• Most villagers bristle at the suggestion that Israel has been targeting anybody but civilians. Anger boiled over last week when a shelter in Qana was hit, killing 29 people, most of them children." What have they done to deserve this? Is this a military target?" wept Mohamad Chalhoub, clutching the lifeless body of his daughter. Local officials said there were no weapons or rockets in the house where the children slept in Qana, no warning before the bomb fell. But the next day, the same Lebanese Red Cross team that dug out the children's bodies stumbled across the shreds of more rocket launchers in a village nearby. One was found deep inside a fruit orchard. Another was found wedged between two houses. In this part of Lebanon, Hezbollah still rules the streets. (Sonia Verma, National Post, Canada.  Saturday, August 05, 2006)

·        The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.  "Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said. "Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.   "It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more."  The release of the images [of Hezbollah firing its Katyushas from under a residential apartment building in Wadi Shahrour] comes as Hezbollah faces criticism for allegedly using innocent civilians as "human shields".  [UN humanitarian chief] Mr. Egeland blasted Hezbollah as "cowards" for operating among civilians.  "When I was in Lebanon, in the Hezbollah heartland, I said Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children," he said.  (Photos that Damn Hezbollah. Chris Link, Herald Sun, July 31, 2006)

·         “Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar. “They are shooting from between our houses.” “Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.” Mr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters in groups of two and three had come into Ain Ebel, less than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the fighting has occurred. They were using it as a base to shoot rockets, he said, and the Israelis fired back. One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail. “This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah, she said. (New York Times, July 27, 2006). 

·        “A younger man came up to me and, when we were out of earshot of others, said that Hezbollah had kept bombs in the basement of the mosque, but that two days earlier a truck had taken the cache away. It was common knowledge in Sidon, he said, and everyone was expecting the mosque to be hit. When, the previous evening, displaced people from the south had gathered on the grounds, they had been warned away.