Hezbollah faces backlash in Lebanon as Israel’s invasion widens

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Hezbollah faces backlash in Lebanon as *******’s invasion widens

As *******’s invasion of Lebanon intensifies and brings more destruction on the Mediterranean nation, anger among the Lebanese with ******* is, not surprisingly, at an all-time high.

But displeasure with its foe, Hezbollah, is also growing.

With

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and more than

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— a fifth of the country’s population — Hezbollah critics and supporters alike are voicing frustration over what many view as the group’s miscalculations.

“This is a war between Iran and ******* on Lebanese territory,” said Sami Gemayel, an MP with the Kataeb party, a long-time rival of Hezbollah.

“Unfortunately, today, we’re all stuck,” Gemayel said. “Hezbollah is continuing its war. It’s not willing to stop, and is taking the whole country to ***** with it.”

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Family members of those ******* in ******** attacks are also blaming Hezbollah — an Iran-backed militant group and one of Lebanon’s biggest political parties — for lacking adequate plans to evacuate, shelter or rescue them.

Slowly picking his way through the rubble of what was the six-story building in a Hezbollah-dominated Beirut suburb where his brother lived, Mohammad, 40, who asked only to be identified by his first name, wondered when recovery crew workers would finally arrive. He said the bodies of his brother, sister-in-law and nephew lay in the wreckage.

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People and rescue workers search for victims after an ******** airstrike hit two adjacent buildings east of the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, on Sept. 29. (Mohammad Zaatari / Associated Press)

Hezbollah officials told him he would have to wait because crews were already overburdened due to “the situation.” But workers, he pointed out, were actively recovering the bodies of Hezbollah members in a destroyed building nearby.

“We appreciate their sacrifice,” the man said. “But they chose this. Don’t tell me it’s ‘the situation’ when you get [Hezbollah members’ bodies] out and leave my family under the rubble. Why should my brother and his family wait to be *******? I know I won’t find their bodies. But give me some pieces of flesh I can put in a bag and go bury them.”

Many fault Hezbollah for starting the latest conflict with *******.

A day after ************ militants from ****** attacked southern ******* and sparked the *******-****** war last October, Hezbollah

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by launching a barrage of missiles and rockets at northern *******. Hezbollah said it was seeking to aid ****** and force ******* to ****** on two fronts.

Some 60,000 people from northern ******* and 90,000 in southern Lebanon were displaced

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of ****-for-tat border attacks.

The apparent assumption among Hezbollah leaders was that *******’s exhaustion from its Gaza campaign would mean it had little appetite for an all-out war, especially against a well-armed adversary like Hezbollah. That assumption proved to be spectacularly wrong.

Late last month, ******* launched thousands of airstrikes across Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah-dominated areas in the south, east and the capital Beirut even as its forces began what the ******** military called “a limited incursion.”

But ******** evacuation orders keep expanding to new areas every few days, raising the specter of almost a third of the country being under occupation.

Nationalist and anti-******* fervor is top of mind for most Lebanese, said Mark Daou, a Lebanese MP with a bloc not aligned with Hezbollah.

“All Lebanese want steadfastness against *******,” he said. “If there’s an occupation, anyone who is Lebanese, no matter their sect, it’s their duty to ****** and resist.”

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But he added that such sentiments do not absolve Hezbollah of blame for pushing Lebanon into war and tying its fate to the situation in Gaza — all at Iran’s behest.

“More and more Hezbollah is looking like a purely Iran-aligned apparatchik, as opposed to a locally ingrained Lebanese party,” Daou said.

Much of the anger at Hezbollah springs from how quickly the group’s leadership appears to have been decimated, with ******* demonstrating its spying prowess time and again by picking off the group’s top-ranking officials. That includes

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, who was ******* in a massive airstrike last month.

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Men read mobile phone alerts telling the residents of southern Lebanon not to return to their homes until further notice due to ******** military operations against Hezbollah facilities Wednesday. (Hussein Malla / Associated Press)

“It’s clear now none of this was calculated,” said Tony Chakar, a Beirut-based artist and architect who is not supportive of Hezbollah. “The basis for them entering the war was that they were prepared and had more than 100,000 missiles.”

“So where are they?” he asked. “If you have something, then show it.”

The criticism has extended to Hezbollah’s main patron Iran, with a growing suspicion among ****-hard Hezbollah supporters that a lack of a meaningful response to Nasrallah’s ******** was proof that the group was sold out by Tehran.

“This couldn’t have happened without betrayal,” said Ali, a Hezbollah supporter who lived in a Hezbollah-dominated area until his home was destroyed in an airstrike targeting what the ******** military said was a weapons cache. He asked to be identified only by his first name. “Iran stabbed us in the back. It’s clear.”

So widespread is the dissatisfaction with Iran’s level of support that Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem addressed the issue in a televised speech Tuesday.

“Iran decides how to support and how to give, and it gave [a lot] over the years,” he said, adding that “the battle is not one for Iran and Iran’s influence in the region … but rather to liberate Palestine.”

With ******* focusing its campaign primarily on Hezbollah’s loyalist areas, most of the displaced have been from Lebanon’s Shiite community. They escaped north with little more than whatever they could cram into or atop their vehicles. Those who didn’t find space with family or hastily prepared shelters now camp out in public squares, parks and even on sidewalks along Beirut’s famous beach promenade.

The longer they stay, the more friction there will be, said Mustafa Alloush, a Sunni ******* MP from the northern city of Tripoli, where tens of thousands of displaced have found refuge.

“So far everyone is behaving,” Alloush said. Some locals are wary of taking in the displaced for ***** of unknowingly harboring a Hezbollah member and drawing ******** *****, but others have opened homes without concern for sect.

“But if it goes beyond a certain point, a social ********** is possible,” Alloush warned.

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A woman holds a sign in Portuguese that reads, “End the bombings in Lebanon,” during a pro-************ demonstration a day after the first anniversary of the start of the war between ******* and ****** in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday. (Bruna Prado / Associated Press)

******* appears to be banking on disenchantment with Hezbollah. On Tuesday, in a televised address, ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Lebanese people to “stand up” and take their country back from the group, warning them to “save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Analysts say ******* has a larger strategy aimed at turning the Lebanese against Hezbollah.

“The reason they’re not ******** other [non-Shiite] areas is because they want to create an environment for Hezbollah that is very inhospitable,” said Michael Young, an analyst at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center. “This suggests a much more [ambitious] plan than just a matter of securing the border.”

Gemayel, the Kataeb MP, fears such a scenario could bring about a repeat of the sectarian bloodletting that engulfed Lebanon during its 15-year civil war.

“As long as there’s hope these people can return home, we can handle it,” he said. “But once ******* decides to stay, it’s another story. Then Lebanon will implode.”

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#Hezbollah #faces #backlash #Lebanon #Israels #invasion #widens

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