Lebanon
On the sidelines, Hezbollah looms large over Gaza battle
Ever since their last war in 2006, Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militia have constantly warned that a new round between them is inevitable. Yet once again, a potential trigger has gone unpulled.
Hezbollah’s shadow loomed large during Israel and Hamas’ two-week battle, with the possibility it could unleash its arsenal of missiles - far more powerful than Hamas’ - in support of the Palestinians.
Instead, Hezbollah stayed on the sidelines. And if a ceasefire that took effect early Friday holds, another Israel-Hamas war will have ended without Hezbollah intervention.
For now, both sides had compelling reasons not to clash, including - for Hezbollah - the bitter memory of Israel’s punishing 2006 bombing campaign that turned its strongholds in Lebanon to rubble. Lebanon is also in the grips of an economic and financial collapse unparalleled in its modern history and can ill afford another massive confrontation with Israel.
Read:Israel Palestinian Conflict: UN chief welcomes cease-fire, urges negotiations
For Israel, the Iranian-backed group in Lebanon remains its toughest and most immediate security challenge.
“Israel needs to manage the conflict in Gaza with a very open eye toward what is happening in the north, because the north is a much more important arena than Gaza,” said Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief who currently heads the Institute for National Security Studies. He spoke before the truce took effect at 2 a.m. Friday.
Hezbollah’s reaction during the 11 days of Israeli bombardment that engulfed Gaza in death and destruction was relatively mute. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, did not make any public comments, even after a Hezbollah fighter was shot dead by Israeli soldiers at the border during a protest last week.
Late Thursday, Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved a unilateral cease-fire to halt the Gaza operation, a decision that came after heavy U.S. pressure to stop the offensive. Hamas quickly followed suit and said it would honor the deal.
Throughout the current round of fighting, Hezbollah’s show of solidarity — including unclaimed rocket barrages from south Lebanon into Israel on three separate occasions in the past week — appeared carefully calibrated for limited impact. Most landed in open areas or in the Mediterranean Sea. The rockets are believed to have been fired by Palestinian factions based in south Lebanon, likely with Hezbollah’s blessing.
“The political message is ‘we are here,’ and safety for Israel from its northern border is not to be taken for granted and neither is the deterrent that was established in 2006” when the two sides fought each other to a draw, said Joyce Karam, an adjunct professor of political science at George Washington University.
At the tense Lebanon-Israel border, Hezbollah supporters wearing yellow hats organized daily protests over the past week. On at least one occasion, dozens of people breached the fence and crossed to the other side, drawing Israeli shots that struck and killed a 21-year-old. He was later identified as a Hezbollah fighter, and given a full-fledged funeral with hundreds in attendance.
Analysts said chances of Hezbollah joining in the fighting with Israel were low, particularly given the political and economic implosion happening in Beirut and the array of challenges the group faces internally with social tensions on the rise. Even among Hezbollah’s supporters, there is no appetite for a confrontation as Lebanese suffer under an economic crash that has driven half of the population into poverty.
Read:Israel, Hamas agree to cease-fire to end bloody 11-day war
Also, Hezbollah’s patron Iran is engaged in nuclear talks with the West, with growing hopes an agreement might be reached. Tehran has also been holding talks with longtime regional rival, Saudi Arabia, signaling a possible de-escalation following years of animosity that often spilled into neighboring countries.
“Hezbollah so far doesn’t seem inclined to spoil Iran’s talks with world powers on the nuclear front because it wants to see sanctions relief for its primarily political, military and financial backer,” said Karam, who covers Mideast politics for the regional newspaper The National.
Speaking at a rally in south Beirut on Monday, senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine bragged about the group’s firepower, which he said has multiplied many times since the 2006 war, but suggested the time has not come for Hezbollah to get involved.
“We in Hezbollah look to the day where we will fight together, with you, side by side and shoulder to shoulder, on all fronts to extract this cancerous cell,” he said, addressing Palestinians and referring to Israel’s presence in the Arab world. “This day is coming, it’s inevitable.”
Hezbollah has grown considerably more powerful in the last decade and amassed a formidable army with valuable battlefield experience backing the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the neighboring country’s civil war, Israeli defense officials say.
During the inconclusive, monthlong 2006 war, the group launched some 4,000 rockets into Israel - as many as Hamas and other Palestinian groups fired at Israel during the current round of fighting - most of them unguided projectiles with limited range. Today, Israeli officials say Hezbollah possesses some 130,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking virtually anywhere in Israel.
Yadlin, the former Israeli military intelligence chief, said all intelligence assessments, however, indicate that Hezbollah does not want a full-on conflict with Israel.
“Nasrallah is in the position that he doesn’t want to repeat the mistake of 2006. He knows he won’t be the defender of Lebanon, he will be the destroyer of Lebanon,” said Yadlin. “He had a lot of opportunities and he hasn’t taken them.” He was referring to Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah assets in Syria for which the group vowed to retaliate, but still has not.
Qassim Qassir, an analyst and expert on Hezbollah affairs in Lebanon, concurred that there seemed to be no intention to open the southern front because it would “lead to an all-out war with consequences no one can predict.”
Read:Palestinian minister: Cease-fire in Gaza is `not enough’
For now, both Israel and Hezbollah consider the deterrence established following the 2006 war to be holding, with Hezbollah threatening to strike deeper than ever inside Israel, including at its nuclear facilities, and Israel vowing to target civilian infrastructure, inflicting massive damage.
Karam said both Hezbollah and Israel have been saying since 2006 that round two is inevitable, but its cost has only gone up for both sides. For the moment, both seem satisfied with keeping their tensions on Syrian territory rather than having another war in Lebanon.
But each day brings closer the possibility of an unwanted conflict coming to bear.
“For now, this paradigm seems to hold,” she said.
'No Sweets': For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a tough Ramadan
It was messy and hectic in Aisha al-Abed’s kitchen, as the first day of Ramadan often is. Food had to be on the table at precisely 7:07 p.m. when the sun sets and the daylong fast ends.
What is traditionally a jovial celebration of the start of the Muslim holy month around a hearty meal was muted and dispirited for her small Syrian refugee family.
As the 21-year-old mother of two worked, with her toddler daughter in tow, reminders of life’s hardships were everywhere: In the makeshift kitchen, where she crouched on the ground to chop cucumbers next to a single-burner gas stove. In their home: a tent with a concrete floor and wooden walls covered in a tarp. And, definitely, in their iftar meal -- rice, lentil soup, french fries and a yogurt-cucumber dip; her sister sent over a little chicken and fish.
“This is going to be a very difficult Ramadan,” al-Abed said. “This should be a better meal ... After a day’s fast, one needs more nutrition for the body. Of course, I feel defeated.”
Ramadan, which began Tuesday, comes as Syrian refugees’ life of displacement has gotten even harder amid their host country Lebanon’s economic woes. The struggle can be more pronounced during the holy month, when fasting is typically followed by festive feasting to fill empty stomachs.
“High prices are killing people,” said Raed Mattar, al-Abed’s 24-year-old husband. “We may fast all day and then break our fast on only an onion,” he said, using an Arabic proverb usually meant to convey disappointment after long patience.
Lebanon, home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, is reeling from an economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and a massive explosion that destroyed parts of the capital last August.
Citing the impact of the compounded crises, a U.N. study said the proportion of Syrian refugee families living under the extreme poverty line — the equivalent of roughly $25 a month per person by current black market rates — swelled to 89% in 2020, compared to 55% the previous year.
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More people resorted to reducing the size or number of meals, it said. Half the Syrian refugee families surveyed suffer from food insecurity, up from 28% at the same time in 2019, it said.
Refugees are not alone in their pain. The economic turmoil, which is the culmination of years of corruption and mismanagement, has squeezed the Lebanese, plunging 55% of the country’s 5 million people into poverty and shuttering businesses.
As jobs became scarce, Mattar said more Lebanese competed for the low-paying construction and plumbing jobs previously left largely for foreign workers like himself. Wages lost their value as the local currency, fixed to the dollar for decades, collapsed. Mattar went from making the equivalent of more than $13 a day to less than $2, roughly the price of a kilo and a half (about 3 pounds) of non-subsidized sugar.
“People are kind and are helping, but the situation has become disastrous,” he said. “The Lebanese themselves can’t live. Imagine how we are managing.”
Nerves are fraying. Mattar was among hundreds displaced from an informal camp last year after a group of Lebanese set it on fire following a fight between a Syrian and a Lebanese.
It was the fifth displacement for al-Abed’s young family, bouncing mainly between informal settlements in northern Lebanon. They had to move twice after that, once when a Lebanese landowner doubled the rent, telling Mattar he can afford it since he gets aid as a refugee. Their current tent is in Bhannine.
This year, Syrians marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the uprising-turned-civil war in their country. Many refugees say they cannot return because their homes were destroyed or they fear retribution, either for being considered opposition or for evading military conscription, like Mattar. He and al-Abed each fled Syria in 2011 and met in Lebanon.
Even before Ramadan started, Rahaf al-Saghir, another Syrian in Lebanon, fretted over what her family’s iftar would look like.
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“I don’t know what to do,” said the recently widowed mother of three daughters. “The girls keep saying they crave meat, they crave chicken, biscuits and fruit.”
As the family’s options dwindled, her daughters’ questions became more heart wrenching. Why can’t we have chips like the neighbors’ kids? Why don’t we drink milk to grow up like they say on television? Al-Saghir recalled breaking into tears when her youngest asked her what the strawberry she was seeing on television tasted like. She later bought her some, using U.N. assistance money, she said.
For Ramadan, al-Saghir was determined to stop her daughters from seeing photos of other people’s iftar meals. “I don’t want them to compare themselves to others,” she said. “When you are fasting in Ramadan, you crave a lot of things.”
The start of Ramadan, the first since al-Saghir’s husband died, brought tears. Her oldest daughters were used to their father waking them for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal before the day’s fast, which he’d prepare.
A few months before he died — of cardiac arrest — the family moved into a one-bedroom apartment shared with a relative’s family.
This year, their first iftar was simple — french fries, soup and fattoush salad. Al-Saghir wanted chicken but decided it was too expensive.
Before violence uprooted them from Syria, Ramadan felt festive. Al-Saghir would cook and exchange visits with family and neighbors, gathering around scrumptious savory and sweet dishes.
“Now, there’s no family, no neighbors and no sweets,” she said. “Ramadan feels like any other day. We may even feel more sorrow.”
Amid her struggles, she turns to her faith.
“I keep praying to God,” she said. “May our prayers in Ramadan be answered and may our situation change. ... May a new path open for us.”
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