Lebanese joyful as released prisoners return

Cheering, dancing, throwing rice and rose petals, hundreds of thousands of jubilant Lebanese gave a heroes’ welcome to five people from their country released on July 16 in a prisoner swap with Israel. Among them was Samir Kuntar, the longest-held Lebanese prisoner, who, on his return after 30 years in an Israeli jail, called for armed struggle.

The other four were Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. The remains of 199 Arabs who over the years had fought the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and Palestine were also turned over. Now all the Lebanese who were held prisoner by Israel are free.

The government called the release “a victory for all Lebanese” and declared a national day of celebration. However, it was Hezbollah, not the Lebanese government, that brokered this historic release. The hard-won release was a triumph for this armed national liberation movement and underscored that Hezbollah is the only force able to guard Lebanese sovereignty and wring concessions from the Israeli-U.S. colossus.

Most of all, it was a victory for the people of Lebanon and their iron will to fight occupation and oppression. Feeling their own strength, the Lebanese and Palestinians in Lebanon used the return of the fighters’ remains as an opportunity to praise and honor the heroes from all Arab countries who have given their lives for the Lebanese and Palestinian cause, reaffirming the worthiness of armed struggle.

Humiliation for Israel

In return for the released Lebanese, Israel received the coffins of two of its soldiers seized by Lebanese fighters at the border in July 2006 and a box containing the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the war that followed.

Hezbollah seized the two Israeli soldiers as a bargaining chip to restart long-stalled talks with Israel for a prisoner release. But Israel refused to negotiate. Instead, with a green light from Washington, Tel Aviv invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to recover its soldiers but really to try to break the back of Hezbollah.

The 34-day invasion left 1,000 dead Lebanese—many of them civilians and about one-third children—and 160 dead Israelis, mostly soldiers. But the fierce resistance forced Israel to withdraw.

Today, “Hezbollah has grown into a force more powerful than the state itself, militarily, politically and socially.” (New York Times, July 17) Israel has been forced to participate in a prisoner exchange after all, but now it is for the remains of Israelis who would still be alive today had Tel Aviv not invaded Lebanon. In marked contrast to the response in Lebanon, in Israel the exchange was seen as a reminder of its humiliating defeat in 2006.

‘We will come back to Palestine’

Thousands of cheering, confetti-throwing Lebanese greeted the five released prisoners as, dressed in military fatigues, they crossed from Israel onto Lebanese soil and a red carpet, flanked by a Hezbollah honor guard. Two Lebanese Army helicopters then flew them to the Beirut, where crowds throwing rice mobbed their cars and carried the men to a rally.

As fireworks lit the night sky, tens of thousands of smiling, flag-waving, joyous people gathered for the huge homecoming under the banner “God’s achievement through our hands.” The victory rally was held in Beirut’s impoverished and mostly Shia southern suburb of Dahiya, which two years ago had been flattened by Israeli bombs. All arteries in the district were gridlocked for hours as cars streamed in from southern Lebanon to join the celebration.

Samir Kuntar, who was captured when he entered Israel with a group from the Palestine Liberation Front, was 16 at the time. He spent 30 years in an Israeli jail, yet he strode up to the podium and told the whistling, cheering and roaring crowd, “I return from Palestine, only to go back to Palestine. I promise families in Palestine that we are coming back, me and my brothers in resistance.” Kuntar is from Lebanon’s Druze community.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, referring to how Israel’s 10-year occupation of Lebanon was ended by popular resistance in 2000, explained, “As we have said in the year 2000, the time of defeat is long gone. And today is the time of victory.”

Of the released prisoners, he said, “These people have proved to the world, to their friends and their enemies, that they cannot be defeated. ... This people, this nation and this country, which gave a clear image today, cannot be defeated.” He called on all to “rally round the resistance.”

Indeed, the resistance was celebrated everywhere. When Kuntar entered his hometown of Aabey in a triumphal convoy the next day, the road was lined with joyous people under the banner, “From Palestine to Iraq to Lebanon, the resistance is victorious.”

‘Rare national unity’ greets fighters’ remains

A convoy of eight trucks carried the coffins of the 199 Arab freedom fighters killed in decades of fighting Israel to Beirut the next day from southern Lebanon. With the coffins draped in Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and decorated with ornate flower wreaths and victory banners, the trucks resembled celebratory floats.

A Beirut newspaper reported, “In a rare spectacle of national unity, Lebanese and Palestinians from all political and religious affiliations lined the roads to greet the procession, forcing the trucks to make repeated stops as onlookers spilled out onto the road to throw rose petals and rice.” (Daily Star, July 18)

Mosque and church bells rang as the entourage passed. People lining the roads carried flags and photographs of martyred relatives. “It’s like he’s coming back to me alive,” said Hajj Hassas Wazwazz, whose son Ali had been killed in 2006 after 13 days of fighting.

“Ahmad Khalaf, a Palestinian who was expecting a relative’s body to be returned, said, ‘I wish the Palestinian revolution would regain its lost fire,’ clearly impressed with Hezbollah’s success.” (Star)

Five thousand people attended a memorial service the next day in Beirut for the eight Hezbollah fighters killed in 2006. Hezbollah leader Hashem Safiedine explained at the service, “The brothers of these martyers will confront the enemy if it ever thinks of making the mistake of attacking Lebanon.” Uniformed Hezbollah fighters carried the coffins through the southern suburbs as thousands of people followed. “Israel has fallen,” read the sign of one onlooker.

Palestinian heroine honored

Among the remains returned were those of Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman guerrilla who, in 1978 when she was 19 years old, led a raid on Israel. She is a heroine of the Palestinian resistance. The Star reported that “Her sister wept as her coffin, draped in the Lebanese flag, arrived in Naqoura to a military salute by some 100 Hezbollah fighters, with a team of horses galloping down the green carpet.” The respect given her remains by the Lebanese resistance stands in marked contrast to the way the Lebanese government confines Palestinians to their camps, under an apartheid-like system.

Bodies of members of secular Lebanese and Palestinian political parties, among them the Lebanese Communist Party, the Amal Movement and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, were also returned. There were also the remains of fighters from other Arab countries who had died for Lebanon and Palestine.

The mood in the Arab world toward this release was best explained by a blogger on the angryarab.com site: “Make no mistake about it: the supply of Arabs willing to fight Israeli occupation will never deplete. Never.”