At Funeral, a Sunni Village Condemns Hezbollah’s Presence

[oberliner]

At Funeral, a Sunni Village Condemns Hezbollah’s Presence

By HASSAN M. FATTAH
Published: August 25, 2006

MARWAHEEN, Lebanon, Aug. 24 — For months, the residents of this predominantly Sunni village near the Israeli border watched anxiously as the Shiite Hezbollah militiamen brought arms and rockets into town in preparation for battle. The residents grappled with whether they should accept the fighters’ presence and face a possible Israeli attack or try to eject them, with the more probable risk of retribution by Hezbollah

On Thursday, as the village buried 23 people who were killed by Israeli warplanes while trying to flee on July 15, many had belatedly made up their mind.

“We kept beseeching them, ‘Stay out! Stay out!’ ” said Zainab Ali Abdullah, 19, who lost her father, brother and several other members of the family in the attack. “They said, ‘We’re all in the same boat together, so deal with it.’ But why should our children die for their cause?”


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/world/middleeast/25sunnis.html?_r=1&oref=login

[xultar]

1. Beautiful that they are trying to take back their towns from Hezbollah.

Hezbollah should only stay in towns where they have a constituency that voted them into political office. They shouldn't go places where they have no constituency and put those people into danger with their presence.

[scarletwoman]

2. That is very heartbreaking.

More from the article:

The town’s troubles began sometime last year when a local resident who had converted to Shiism was appointed the local representative of Hezbollah, residents said. Soon strange things began to occur: strangers came through for late-night meetings; trucks would come and go in the middle of the night; and a suspicious-looking white van was parked at each end of the village.

<snip>

Residents said Hezbollah was using them as human shields. “One man in this village was able to turn all our lives upside down for just a bit of money,” Ibrahim said. When the villagers left, he said, the fighters did too, as evidenced by the limited damage done to the town.

“We want the army and the United Nations to come in here and protect us,” he said. “Israel is our enemy, but the problem is that Hezbollah gave them an excuse to come in and kill our children.”

It sounds like one of their own villagers brought Hezbollah in. It makes me wonder if they would have been there otherwise. It would be interesting to find out if HA staged rocket launches from any villages in which they had no previously existing inside personnel.

Not excusing what happened to these villagers, mind you, just wondering if there's a particular protocol involved.

sw