BEIRUT (AP) – Returning to base after firing rockets at Israeli positions from a border area last month, a group of Hezbollah fighters were attacked by angry villagers who broke the windshields of their vehicles and left them. keep briefly high.
It was a rare incident of defiance that suggested that many in Lebanon would not tolerate the provocations of the powerful group that runs the risk of unleashing a new war with Israel.
As Lebanon sinks into poverty, many Lebanese are more openly critical of Iran-backed Hezbollah. They accuse the group, along with the ruling class, of the devastating and multiple crises the country is suffering from, including a dramatic monetary drop and a severe shortage of medicines and fuel.
“Hezbollah faces its biggest challenge to maintain control over the Lebanese system and the so-called ‘protective environment of resistance’ against Israel,” said Joe Macaron, a Washington-based Middle East analyst. .
The incident along the border and other clashes, including a deadly shooting at the funeral of a Hezbollah fighter and rare indirect criticism by the country’s top Christian religious leader, have left the group on the defensive.
Anger has spread in recent months, even to Hezbollah’s strongholds, where many have protested power outages and fuel shortages, as well as the fall of the currency that has plunged more than the half of the country’s 6 million people in need.
In its strongholds, where Shiite Muslims predominate, it is not uncommon for people to speak out against the group. They note that Hezbollah pays salaries in US dollars at a time when most Lebanese are paid in Lebanese currency, which has lost more than 90% of its value in almost two years.
Protests and fights have erupted at gas stations around Lebanon and at some Hezbollah strongholds. In rare displays of defiance, groups of protesters have also closed key roads in those areas south of Beirut and southern Lebanon.
In recent speeches, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been outraged, blaming the scarcity of what he describes as an undeclared Western siege. The chaos in Lebanon, he said, is being instigated from a “black room” inside the U.S. embassy.
Critics say that instead of pushing for reform, Hezbollah has stood by its political allies who resist change. They say the group is increasingly throwing Lebanon into Iran’s orbit by making its bids and that US sanctions against Iran and Hezbollah they have made things harder.
Where Hezbollah was considered an almost sacred and untouchable force fighting for a noble cause, the struggle against the Israeli enemy, it is now seen by many simply as part of the corrupt political clique responsible for the country’s epic defeat. However, when it comes to fighting Israel, the group enjoys unwavering support within its support base.
Often criticized for operating as a state within a state, Hezbollah has tried to alleviate the effects of the crisis about his followers in a similar way.
While the government has been working for months to issue ration cards to poor families, Hezbollah has come a long way. He has issued two such cards to poor families living on the bastions of Hezbollah, one called Sajjad with the name of a Shiite imam and a second called Nour, or light, for his fighters and employees of his institutions who in they number about 80,000.
“We will serve you with our lashes,” is Hezbollah’s slogan for serving the extremely poor of their communities, a Lebanese term meaning they are willing to sacrifice anything to help others.
Tens of thousands carrying Sajjad cards can not only buy highly subsidized products from dozens of stores across Lebanon, mainly commodities made in Lebanon, Iran and Syria, but can also receive medical treatment and advice at 48 clinics run by Hezbollah throughout Lebanon.
Nasrallah is also organizing a sea corridor that transports oil from Iran to Lebanon to help alleviate fuel shortages, as the first oil tanker is believed to be on its way. Hezbollah supporters have praised the move and strongly criticized its opponents, saying it runs the risk of further sanctions on Lebanon.
In the border incident, villagers of the minority Druze sect intercepted Hezbollah fighters as they returned after firing rockets at a disputed area owned by Israel. The villagers briefly arrested them and the mobile rocket launcher they used after accusing them of putting them at risk if Israel attacked again.
The fighters and the launcher were handed over to the Lebanese troops, who released them on the same day.
Hezbollah later angered many Christians after supporters launched a campaign on social media against the head of Lebanon’s largest Maronite Catholic church, accusing him of treason after criticizing the group for having launched rockets against Israeli positions.
The dreaded group has been attacked by accusations from its local opponents. They include silencing their opponents, facilitating fuel smuggling and other subsidized items to neighboring Syria, and alienating oil-rich Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, leading them to stop financial assistance due to Hezbollah’s dominance in the US. Lebanon.
The most serious charge has been a claim by opponents at home that the group brought hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate that exploded in the port of Beirut last year and killed at least 214 people, injured thousands and destroyed parts of the capital.
No direct connection to Hezbollah has emerged, but unfounded theories linking the group to the reservation abound. One claim is that Hezbollah imported the chemicals on behalf of the Syrian government, which used them in barrel bombs against rebel zones during the ten-year conflict in the neighboring country.
“Hezbollah agencies are active in the port and the security agencies and all Lebanese know that. Why is Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah above questioning it? asked Samy Gemayel, right – wing party leader Christian Kataeb, recently.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any link to ammonium nitrate. But Nasrallah further angered the families of the victims and other Lebanese recently by criticizing the judge leading the investigation into the blast, suggesting it should be replaced. Nasrallah described Judge Tarek Bitar as “politicized” after he filed charges against some lawmakers and former cabinet ministers allied with Hezbollah.
“There is an attempt to demonize Hezbollah and tarnish its image,” said Sadek Naboulsi, a political science professor at Lebanese University. The professor, who has ties to the group, accused foreign powers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States of trying to incite internal conflicts between Lebanon’s Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities with the aim of weakening them. Hezbollah. He added that Hezbollah had overcome these pressures in the past and had come out more powerful.
A serious test of Hezbollah took place in early August when he underwent a funeral of a militant by alleged Sunni gunmen at the southern entrance to Beirut. Three Hezbollah supporters were killed and 16 were injured in the shooting in the city of Khaldeh.
Hezbollah did not retaliate and called on the Lebanese authorities to investigate the case.
“A growing number of Lebanese are realizing that the concept of a Lebanese state cannot coexist with a powerful armed militia serving an outside power,” wrote Michael Young, editor of Diwan, the Carnegie Middle East Center blog.
Macaron said Hezbollah will not be the same after the crisis and will have to adapt to ensure long-term political survival.
“What they can do right now is limit losses as much as possible,” he said.