BEIRUT: For 51 days, Rana Fliti has not finished a candy bar. “I always leave a little bit for my husband. I’m waiting for him to come back,” she said.
Fliti’s husband Ali Bazal was captured alongside more than 30 other servicemen during bloody battles in Arsal last month.
Bazal appeared in a video released by the Nusra Front Friday in which the group appears to execute fellow ISF officer Mohammad Hammieh. Cuffed and on his knees, Bazal pleaded in tears for Hezbollah to leave Syria as he glances at the lifeless body of his comrade. Nusra has said it will continue to kill the captive soldiers until Hezbollah stops its operations in Syria.
“To the Lebanese people, my life and my friends’ life depends on you. Stop Hezbollah,” Ali said, his cuffed wrists outstretched toward the camera in a desperate appeal.
Fliti refused to watch the video, but overheard her husband’s voice when someone nearby was streaming it. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I had a breakdown,” she told The Daily Star on the phone.
Twenty-five-year-old Fliti, whose voice quivers on the phone, prefers to talk about the early days of her romance with Bazal which reads something like a Hollywood script.
The two met after Bazal was assigned to man a checkpoint near her family’s house in Arsal.
Bazal, a Shiite, hails from the nearby town of Labweh and Fliti’s conservative Sunni family was initially wary of their relationship.
“It’s not because he was Shiite, but because he was a stranger,” said Fliti, whose large extended family enjoys both political and economic clout in Arsal. “Arsalis are used to marrying other Arsalis.”
Eventually, her father gave his blessing, but money troubles gave rise to a dispute. Fearing their parents would forbid the marriage, Fliti and Bazal eloped.
“No one knew we had married, and when my brothers found out they created some problems,” Fliti recalled. “Then my husband’s uncle shot one of my brothers.”
Her brother lived, but tensions ran high between the two families for almost a year.
During the blood feud, Fliti lived with her husband’s family, where she says her husband’s generosity of spirit was fully revealed. “He’s a gentleman ... He never tried to prevent me from talking to my family.”
Their confessional differences were never an issue either, Fliti said. “He told me to pray the way my father taught me. He told me to practice my religion however I wanted to.”
“Over time, my love for him just continued to grow.”
Just over a year after their marriage, Fliti gave birth to a daughter, Maram. Now 3 years old, Maram suffers a genetic blood disease and requires costly medications.
The young couple took out a loan from the bank to build their own home and money was tight.
Still, Fliti recalls that after her husband found a $100 bill on the road in front of a supermarket, he brought it to the cashier hoping it would be returned to the rightful owner. “I asked him why he did that,” Fliti said. “He told me, ‘because maybe it belongs to someone who is really in need.’”
The family home they strove to build, however, now lies empty.
“Since he was captured, I have been staying with my in-laws. I couldn’t bear opening the closet and seeing his clothes,” she said, breaking into tears.
“At night, I survive just by looking at his pictures,” she said. “Sometimes I am able to sleep.”
Fliti said she became hysterical after accidentally hearing the recording of her husband two days ago.
“I’m taking a lot of pills just to function,” she admitted.
Fliti said she does not blame the Syrian refugees for her husband’s capture. “I have never once blamed the refugees, because they are fleeing death and terror.”
Rather, she said the government is responsible for the current predicament, and is not doing enough to free her husband. “This is a political game, and my husband and the other captives are paying the price.”
“It’s not that the government doesn’t care [about the captives], they just don’t care enough.”
Fliti has joined families of the captive soldiers to block roads across the country, protesting what they say is government inaction. In light of the increasingly desperate situation, Fliti said that the families will block the Dahr al-Baidar highway, that links the Bekaa Valley to Mount Lebanon, effectively stopping all traffic between Beirut and the Bekaa.
As she works to draw more attention to the plight of the captive soldiers, Fliti has rebuffed those who seek to comfort her. “I don’t want anyone to console me, because they make it seem like Ali has died. He’s not dead yet.”
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