SHEBAA, Lebanon: Unfurling a map, the security source offered his own appraisal of the southern landscapes where for decades armies have marched and fought.
Affected by wars on two fronts, he said, the beleaguered town of Shebaa risks being ensnared in the middle of it all – by virtue of geography alone. “Shebaa is right at the edge of Lebanon,” the source said. “It straddles two borders.”
With decisive battles in Syria’s Deraa and Qunaitra underway, Lebanon should not expect significant spillover, he said. “But the trouble is here,” the source added, pointing to the Syrian village of Beit Jin.
The area is a Free Syrian Army stronghold and lies a mere 20 kilometers from Shebaa, a disputed region that has been at the strategic center of Hezbollah’s open war with Israel since the latter withdrew from occupied Lebanese lands 15 years ago. As the Syrian regime, with military assistance from Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, presses forward with its offensive to weaken FSA battalions on Syria’s southern front, the threat of militants seeking safe passage into the Lebanese town will be amplified, security sources told The Daily Star.
The presence of the Nusra Front remains minimal in Beit Jin and Qunaitra, according to Mario Abou Zeid of the Carnegie Middle East Center. However, he said the militant group has made large efforts through the use of “local scouts” to secure a foothold by approaching local Druze leaders, in the event they are pushed further south from positions of strength in Deraa and Qunaitra.
Beit Jin is surrounded by Druze villages Erneh, Drubal, Hadar and Harfa, some of which are vocally pro-regime. Should the regime’s southern offensive succeed in derailing rebel battalions, the FSA and Nusra will be driven to Shebaa to seek protection, Abou Zeid said. “They will have no other resort.”
“The south Lebanon border will be put at risk,” he added.
The town of Shebaa hosts approximately 4,500 refugees, according to the municipality, most of whom fled from Beit Jin and surrounding villages by scaling the slopes of Mount Hermon, which at its peak of 2,800 meters is the highest peak in Syria. Yusuf Kamal, a 60-year-old convenience store owner from Beit Jin, said he made the strenuous journey clinging on to his walking stick every inch of the way.
Atiyeh Shabi talks to his five children who still live in Beit Jin from a warehouse in Shebaa where he sought refuge in November 2014. “They say the war is coming closer,” he said.
Like many border towns in Lebanon, Shebaa has remained underdeveloped due to years of war and geographical marginalization. The town’s mukhtar, Ramez al-Khatib said that prior to the Israeli occupation of the Shebaa Farms, the town’s residents earned their livelihoods from agriculture and shepherding. “We were so resource rich, a widow could survive on the earnings [from the farm] for the entire year,” he said. Today, he added, residents survive off remittances from relatives who’ve found work elsewhere.
Socioeconomic conditions, paired with a cumbersome refugee influx, have taken a toll, provoking anxieties that its fate might mirror that of another embattled border town, Arsal, which was briefly overrun by ISIS and Nusra Front militants in August. “We are afraid of this,” said Mustafa Nabaa, a local butcher.
Wounded militants have been known to cross into Shebaa’s hospital to seek treatment, according to Walaa Saab, a health care worker. Last November, the Army barred 11 wounded rebels from entering Lebanon through the Mount Hermon region, demanding the release of 25 servicemen being held by ISIS and Nusra in Qalamoun in exchange.
According to the town’s Mayor Mohammad Saab, concern over fallout from Syria affecting Shebaa prompted the municipality to launch local patrols, as other border villages Ras Baalbek and Al-Qaa have done. “We are ready to face any possible problems that might emerge,” he said.
Patrols, led by eight police officers, monitor the entrances to the town and report suspicious activity to the Internal Security Forces and the Army, Saab said.
“You have to anticipate everything,” said Khatib, the mukhtar.
But security sources maintain it is unlikely that the scenario in Arsal, where militant groups have consolidated a presence in the town’s outskirts, will be repeated in Shebaa. Islamist parties, such as Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, with whom Nusra and ISIS have found sympathy, are a minority in the town. Moreover, gaining a foothold in the geographically isolated Shebaa would not be as strategically effective for militant groups, according to security sources.
The Lebanese Army has also bolstered its positions along the Mount Hermon area, and General Security recently erected a post in Shebaa to note the names of Syrians who enter. Security forces have told refugees in the town that they are permitted to stay in Shebaa but no further into Lebanon. “We can’t be sure of what they might do,” said a security source acquainted with the town.
The danger of renewed conflict would be exacerbated should Israel decide to offer militants safe passage to Shebaa through the portion of Shebaa Farms it occupies, security sources and experts agreed.
The presence of the FSA and Nusra in the Golan has created an effective rebel buffer zone, explained Abou Zeid. “Giving them passage [to Lebanon] would be a way for Israel to infiltrate Shebaa,” without directly confronting Hezbollah.
Though for the time being Israel appears to have no interest in engaging in a direct confrontation in the south, Abou Zeid said.
“Any escalation in Shebaa would benefit Israel, because it would expose Hezbollah.”
