About 240 displaced people from predominantly Muslim villages were expelled from the Christian-majority municipality of Rmeish in south Lebanon on Tuesday, after the Israeli army warned residents of attacks if any of the people sheltering there were found to be communicating with Hezbollah.
The Israeli army last week ordered all residents of Lebanon's southern border areas to leave, after a war re-erupted between Hezbollah and Israel, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes and villages across parts of the country.
In a phone call recorded and circulated on social media, an Israeli soldier is heard telling a Rmeish village mukhtar, Hassan Al Hage: “We don't want you to leave. But your presence here has a condition. If Hezbollah is [operating] in your area, we will strike and you will have to leave. It is your responsibility to protect your village. No Hezbollah.”
The soldier continued: “We are aware you are hosting displaced people from Bint Jbeil, Aitaroun and Yaroun. The responsibility is yours. If one of them communicates to Hezbollah – any single one – you will eat that responsibility and that would be a shame … do you understand? Did you understand the message?”
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group, was created in the 1980s in response to Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000. Many of its members are from the country's south and have civilian family members who reside in villages and towns along the border.
With no government shelters in Rmeish, residents had decided to host people from neighbouring Muslim villages who were displaced by fighting in their own homes, Mr Al Hage told The National.
He said several other mukhtars, or local leaders, and residents had received similar calls, causing alarm in the village.
The decision to evict displaced people sheltering in the municipality came one day after the killing of a priest in an Israeli strike on another Christian-majority southern town, Qlayaa - putting Christian villages in south Lebanon on edge. The Israeli army said it had struck "a Hezbollah cell entering a site located in a Christian village" in the south, without providing evidence.
The removal of the displaced families “is not our decision. We were threatened,” Mr Al Hage said. “We can't protect ourselves. Where would we go with our children? We're just farmers.”
The municipality worked with state authorities to relocate the displaced people, Mr Al Hage said.
“They left with the army, in co-ordination with the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Interior and the Internal Security Forces, and they were relocated to Sidon.”
Mr Al Hage said the village had a remaining population of 6,500, all Christian.
“It's tobacco planting season and we've all put thousands of dollars into our land. And none of us are Hezbollah,” he said defiantly. “We're all afraid that if we leave, we'll never be able to come back.”
On Tuesday, the last remaining residents of Alma Al Chaab, a Christian village on Lebanon's border with Israel, fled the area under UN protection, after days of holding out against Israeli threats – following an Israeli strike that killed a resident over the weekend.
A representative for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) told The National that 80 residents left the village in a convoy of vehicles on Tuesday morning.
Video posted online showed Unifil peacekeepers deployed in Alma Al Chaab to escort residents out of the village.
Meanwhile, Israel continued to strike southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, another Hezbollah stronghold, throughout Tuesday.
Hezbollah also claimed several attacks into Israel.
Missiles towards Syria
Overnight, the Syrian army accused Hezbollah of launching missiles towards its positions close to the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, according to Syria’s state news agency, Sana.
The army said it “will not tolerate any attack targeting Syria”.
According to Sana, the Syrian army contacted the Lebanese army “to explore possible options”.
Hezbollah-controlled areas bordering Syria in eastern Lebanon have witnessed intense clashes in recent days between the group and Israeli commando forces, leaving dozens dead on the Lebanese side, including civilians.
Following the incident, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara agreed on the need to better control the Lebanon-Syria border during a phone call, the Lebanese presidency said on Tuesday.
The two leaders agreed on the “need to control the borders and prevent any security spillover”, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency.
The death toll from Israel's attacks on Lebanon since last Monday rose to 486, with 1,313 people injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Monday evening. According to the UN refugee agency, nearly 700,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah joined the war following the start of the US and Israel attacks on Iran on February 28.
