Christians applaud the deployment of the Lebanese army to the south to control Hezbollah. international

There are two important moments about two months apart in the Lebanese town of Qalaiya, just four kilometers from Israel and where “100%” of the approximately 2,900 inhabitants have the same religion (Maronite), the same patron saint (St. George) and a This is the church. , the only person apparently called St. George. His priest Pierre Al Rahi attended both. The first incident took place on 4 October. Israel had escalated an 11-month low-intensity war with Hezbollah into open war and was issuing evacuation orders in southern Lebanon, where mosques and churches dot the mountainous landscape. The Israeli military spokesman then included Qalaiya, a city with a far from secret history during its 18 years of Israeli occupation (1982–2000) and where the term enemy usually refers to Hezbollah. Father al Rahi called the remaining residents (half had escaped the bombing of the area), contacted the Blue Helmets mission monitoring the area, and started a rally: “We are not leaving!” “If we did that,” he explains today, “Hezbollah would take over our empty houses, launch rockets from there, and Israel would respond and harm them. This is about the security of our people. Even if our Don’t have weapons like others.” He convinced the Israeli military, which canceled the order a few hours later.

On Tuesday, the ceasefire ended two and a half months of exhausting fighting, leaving the city as a kind of unattacked island amid Shiite towns that are now devastated and still home to Israeli troops. Have presence. The inside was not bombed for seven weeks, but with no access to the hospital, food and fuel stores were used to power the electricity generators they had prepared. There are also family shops in the agricultural area full of olive groves and fruit trees. Today, Qalya is part of a strip of the map to which the Israeli military restricts access and on which it imposes a curfew from noon to dawn. Some young people keep watching secretly to ensure that no stranger comes inside. That is, no one from Hezbollah or rather no suspicious looking Shia.

The ceasefire agreement establishes that Israeli troops in southern Lebanon (where they had advanced a few kilometers until they were near Qalya) would gradually withdraw over the next two months. Their place will be taken by about 10,000 Lebanese troops, in reinforced deployment with a complex task: ensuring that Hezbollah has neither the militiamen, nor the weapons, nor the workshops to make them, nor that it can regain territory. Gather together.

The Israelis have not yet taken up any positions where they have stopped. But their deployment has started in other areas. The movement of armored vehicles and all-terrain vehicles, trucks carrying troops, checkpoints with metal barriers at the entrances to Shia cities… Their presence, previously almost tangible, is noticeable as soon as you cross the Litani River, Where Hezbollah is exercising authority over an absent and impotent state. That is why this Friday, in his first speech after the end of the ceasefire, Naim Qassim, the new leader of Hezbollah after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, has tried to promise “high-level coordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army”. . to enforce the terms of the agreement” and asking that “no one raise any issues or conflicts” between the two.

On Wednesday, the first day of the ceasefire, several Lebanese Army armored vehicles crossed Qalaiya on their way to the nearby Marjayoun base. This was when the second image emerged, the other side of the same coin that was seen a month and a half ago, of the refusal to leave the city. Neighbors came out to celebrate the deployment of the troops, throwing rice and flower petals at them and chanting slogans such as: “We don’t want to see anything but the Lebanese army.” The soldiers saluted with surprise.

Part of Lebanon feels that what used to be called the “Switzerland of the Middle East” is no longer the case because there is always some group from the region carrying out attacks against Israel. From the seventies, with the fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization) to now, with Hezbollah, which is accused of caring only for its patron, Iran, and not for the national well-being. In his songs he usually says: “A single army for a single state.” Or, in the words of the priest Al Rahi: “It cannot be that there is an army and, moreover, a party with its own weapons.”

This is exactly the opposite of Hezbollah’s narrative, in which its supporters (and others who are not) see the only guarantee of Lebanon’s survival, as the Israeli neighbor will use any pretext to invade it (as it has done several times. Is) half a century). One of his songs is “State, Army, Resistance.” And, in the background, of course, is the historical oblivion and humiliation of Shias compared to Christians privileged by the French colonial administration.

The nearby town of Marjayun, which is Christian in majority, is marked by its proximity to the Miguel de Cervantes Base, part of the Spain-led United Nations Mission Area (UNIFIL). It is present in the number of people who speak Spanish or in the names of shops in the same language, in the streets where UNIFIL soldiers usually pass and, in better times, get off and interact with locals. In this war, Marjayun has paid a higher price than Qalya. Four of their neighbors have been killed in Israeli bombings, which everyone here blames on a Hezbollah member breaking into an empty house.

This is part of what Shia people displaced by the war have endured in recent months, often being treated outside their areas as if they were victims (on hearing their names, which usually refer to religion , refuse to pay rent, or outright expel them), out of fear that the building would eventually become an Israeli target. In anonymous conversations in Shia areas, it comes to light that Christians will one day have to pay the price for behaving like dogs in their time of need. On the other hand, Christians are happy that Israel has done the dirty work of weakening the military Hezbollah, causing the political one to lose internal power as well.

If on the long road crossing Marjayoun they did not find Lebanese Army tanks carrying rice or flower petals, it was partly because they had not stopped passing. But today there are many more people like Tony, to the happiness of his neighbors. “Looking at them gives us peace, it gives us confidence,” he says in front of one of the few open businesses, seemingly empty amid entire rows of closed curtains. “I have full hope that the armed forces will be able to fulfill their mission and we will come out of this dark situation. Till now they were there, but not looking. In any country, it is the army that protects.”

Tony (he prefers not to give his last name) is one of the few people who remained in Marjayoun throughout the conflict, so he is not too worried about the poor health the ceasefire is showing in its first days, During the conversation (some) with about twenty strikes suddenly can be heard in the background from Israel, which has promised to take a tough stance against any attempts by Hezbollah to regroup in the south. “This is not our war,” he said succinctly. “This is not a Lebanese war. “This is a war between Iran and Israel.”