MARJAYOUN, Lebanon: Standing on a hill in southern Lebanon, Ahmad Awada stared at the Israeli shells falling on the nearby town of Abbasieh. “Hezbollah has done it. They have taken revenge for their members who fell in Qunaitra,” he said. “God help us.” Life was upended for scores of southerners Wednesday after Hezbollah missiles hit an Israeli convoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms and the Israeli army returned fire almost immediately. Some schools in Mari, Khiam and Ain Arab were immediately shuttered. Elsewhere, locals gathered on bluffs and hilltops to watch the shelling.
“We will join Hezbollah in war as long as it is fighting Israel,” said Mahmoud Shehab, who hails from Abbasieh. “We will fight on the front lines, because this is a battle of dignity,” he added.
Medium-sized cars transported workers and refugees away to safety. “We ran away from the shelling in Syria to come here,” said Ibrahim Mustafa, a Syrian refugee residing in the area. “But it turns out the situation is the same – only here you’ll die fighting the Jews.”
Randa, a young Syrian refugee, said the shelling reminded her of fleeing her home in Raqqa. “We were very scared, because we ran away from Raqqa where war was going on. We ran away from death,” she said while perched atop a play structure.
Shepherds whose flocks have long grazed in the area, were surprised by Israeli shelling early Wednesday afternoon. “We left our flocks behind and ran,” said Adnan al-Ahmad, a local shepherd. “My heart was with my children in school but they came back thankfully.”
Since six Hezbollah members and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria earlier this month, both Lebanese and Israelis have been waiting for Hezbollah’s response.
“We weren’t expecting Hezbollah to take revenge from the south [of Lebanon],” said Hasan Chit, who hails from the town of Kfar Kila. “We were expecting it to happen from Syria or from the Golan Heights.”
“Israel is afraid of us, the Lebanese and we are all with the Army, the resistance and the people,” he added.
In the town of Khiam, not far from the areas of the shelling, Mahmoud Fouani said the Israelis had surely been waiting for Hezbollah’s move. “Israel was waiting in fear for this operation in the wake of the attack in Qunaitra,” he said, adding that he did not think Israel would further escalate the conflict with Hezbollah despite tough rhetoric by Israeli politicians Wednesday.
“I think that Hezbollah has responded in an appropriate way, and now the leader of the resistance [Sayyed] Hasan Nasrallah will have something to brag about when he speaks Friday.”
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