ohOn a recent morning, a dozen men were clearing rubble near the town of Nabi Chit in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa region. Israeli jets had roared through the valley a week earlier, the second time in three days. Explosions painted the night sky red, yellow and orange and filled the air with the smell of dust and gunpowder.
“They attacked Nabi Chit because our village is the birthplace of the resistance,” said Mohammed al-Moussawi, an ardent supporter of Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group, political party and social movement known locally as the resistance. He stood on the first-floor terrace of his home, facing piles of rubble and twisted metal awnings, his windows blown out and the facade riddled with debris.
A neighbour was killed in the attack. Moussawi's grandson, Hussein, was among 20 injured and taken to hospital with cuts to his face from broken glass. “He is four years old and already understands that Israel is an enemy that violates Arab lands. What do you think will happen when he grows up?” Moussawi said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment on casualties but said in an earlier statement that warplanes targeted arms depots and air defense systems on the night of August 21, triggering secondary explosions. Hezbollah, local officials and witnesses have claimed that civilian homes were hit directly.
Villages in southern Lebanon have borne the brunt of cross-border artillery fire in a so far limited war of attrition, but the latest attacks in the Bekaa Valley could signal an expansion of the hostilities into the country's east, known for its fertile soil, wineries and Roman temples and which until recently drew international tourists.
As fault lines in the region risk ripping, another aspect of the Bekaa region's history is gaining attention.
Dubbed the “caveat de resistance,” the Bekaa Valley is a support base for Hezbollah and a weapons cache along a strategic corridor linking it with its allies in Syria, Iraq and Iran.
“We consider the south to be Lebanon's first line of defense, and the Bekaa region is the second,” said Hassan al-Moussawi, mayor of the Hezbollah-run municipality of Nabi Shayt. [Moussawi is one of the most common names in Nabi Chit and there are no close family ties between the interviewees]Hezbollah receives support from powerful tribes in the Bekaa Valley and draws its fighters from the mainly Shiite population.
The Bekaa Valley is the birthplace of Hezbollah and its leadership. Just downhill from the city lies the ornate shrine of Abbas al-Mousawi, the Shiite cleric who co-founded Hezbollah in 1982 to counter Israeli occupation of Lebanon with the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The Bekaa Valley was the site of Hezbollah's first training camp and served as a rear base when it fought Israeli forces in the south, from which they withdrew in 2000. In the next war, in 2006, Israel bombed one of the main bridges into the valley in an attempt to cut off supply lines.
In recent weeks, the Bekaa Valley has become a battlefield again. For the first time since Hezbollah entered the conflict in October to support its ally Hamas, it used the valley to launch drones at Israel on August 25, its secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech that day. The drones were part of a long-anticipated retaliation for Israel's assassination of General Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an air and drone strike that left more than 400 Hezbollah fighters dead.
Nasrallah acknowledged that Shukr's killing was a “big loss” that would be especially felt in his hometown of Nabi Chit. Using Bekaa province as a base was both a symbolic act to avenge his death and a strategic message that Hezbollah was ready to activate its rear bases. “The military's message sent by Sayyed Nasrallah is that we support peace, not war, but if forced into war, we are ready to use advanced weapons,” Mayor Moussawi said.
Hezbollah's estimated arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles is supplied primarily by Iran, which remains Hezbollah's main backer even after it evolved from an insurgency to become a de facto state in Shiite-majority areas such as Bekaa province. Throughout Nabi Chit, posters extol Iranian leaders, including the late General Qassem Soleimani, who is credited with strengthening Iran's network of regional alliances. Despite the overt veneration of Iranian leaders, not many here consider Hezbollah an Iranian proxy.
“The West thinks there is a leader and followers, Iran gives the orders and we fire,” said Mohammed Moussawi, spokesman for the Mausoleum of Abbas al-Musawi, where a large poster of the Iranian leader hangs next to his tomb.. “The relationship between the two countries is an alliance where decisions are made through consultation. If Iran says, 'Let's bomb Tel Aviv,' and it's not in Hezbollah's interest, then it won't happen.”
Israel and many Western countries designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. In a statement after the attack on Nabi Chit, the Israel Defense Forces said “Hezbollah terrorist cells operate within civilian infrastructure and brutally exploit Lebanese civilians.”
But far from feeling exploited, the people of Nabchit rallied behind Hezbollah after the attacks. “We are joining the resistance because we have been wronged,” said Moussawi, a Hezbollah supporter whose house was damaged.
He was arrested in 1984 when Israeli forces occupied Lebanon. During interrogation, he said, Israeli officers pulled all his teeth and removed his implants to reveal his toothless jaw. After his release, Moussawi joined Hezbollah. Now retired at 60, he has been succeeded by his two sons; his grandson, Hussein, will likely be the third generation to fight for Hezbollah.
One reason people feel so strongly connected to Hezbollah is religion. The Bekaa region is steeped in Shiite doctrine. The Musawi family traces its roots back to Musa al-Kadim, the seventh Shiite imam and successor to the Prophet Muhammad. The fight against injustice is a Shiite belief, and by invoking it, Hezbollah has been able to position its involvement in the conflict as part of a broader fight against Israeli encroachment on Palestinian and Lebanese territory.
These views are further strengthened by anti-occupationist beliefs that date back centuries: Bekaa tribes pride themselves on resisting invaders during the Ottoman and French occupations, and see Israel as the epitome of colonialism.
“I support the Palestinians because if the Palestinians are gone, Israel will fight Lebanon next,” said Sheikh Midhat Zaiter, head of the Bekaa region's most powerful tribe.
He was sitting on the porch of his family's hillside home near the city of Baalbek, a village surrounded by cannabis fields that have gradually replaced other less profitable, more water-intensive crops as the valley's main source of income in a region once known as Lebanon's breadbasket.
In exchange for the tribes' loyalty, Hezbollah has poached local officials and parliamentarians from them and allowed them to grow marijuana, even though drug trafficking runs counter to the group's ideals. “The tribes and Hezbollah share the same principle of armed resistance,” said the sheikh's son, Mohar Zaiter. “We may differ on hundreds of other issues, but fighting Israel is a different story.”
