The Christian village on the border with Israel that escapes the bombings: “This is safer than Beirut”

The highway runs through southern Lebanon, parallel to Israel. Traveling through here is dangerous: the Israeli army can open fire on those cars that it suspects are being driven incognito by Hezbollah militiamen, the armed group with which it has been maintaining for eight months a kind of war of attrition that is getting worse and worse without any results. in open confrontation. Every few kilometers, you see houses bombed by Israel and photos of martyrswho remember the weight of history in these lands: some are casualties of the crossfire with Israel in parallel to the invasion of Gaza (Hezbollah recognizes more than 340); others, now faded, date from the eighties and nineties, when Israel occupied southern Lebanon, involuntarily giving birth to the now powerful Shiite militia party.

Suddenly, in a matter of hundreds of meters, the yellow flags of Hezbollah and green flags of Amal (the other Shia faction) and messages in Arabic such as “Every Muslim must prepare to fight Israel” or “This Lebanon is the best weapon.” against Israel” disappear. The mosques give way to churches and sculptures of the Virgin Mary and, of course, the monk-hermit Saint Charbel, patron saint of Lebanon, its first saint and omnipresent in the Maronite areas. The private school belongs to the Antonine sisters and the shops no longer have names written in Arabic, such as Ali or Mohamed, but Chez George or Manucure Danielle, in French. The advertisements of arak (an anise liquor typical of the region) and a winery named after the town (Domaine de Rmeich, the best) remember that alcohol is produced and drunk here.

The town is called Rmeish, it had about 5,000 inhabitants before the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah and no one would say on this sunny morning that its houses almost touch the Jewish State. Nor that the border makes a curve, leaving the divide about two kilometers to its south, east and west.

Although businesses are closed and some 1,000 families are still displaced by the war (especially to the Christian neighborhoods in east Beirut), cars pass by quite frequently. You can even see children playing in the main square, dominated by a sculpture in homage to François el Hajj, an important general from the town who was murdered in a car bomb attack in Beirut, shortly before becoming, predictably, head of state. Elderly.

The feeling is strange. Drones and the roar of Israeli fighter-bombers can be heard in the background. Also an occasional explosion, or a column of smoke is seen appearing. But the people (both the Lebanese and the Syrian refugees who continue to work there in agriculture) move without fear. Some 400 families have stayed or returned, partly because of their crops (the men continue to dry the tobacco leaves, key to the area’s economy), partly because Beirut is much more expensive, explains Nimr Alam, a professor. 45 years old. The problem is rather getting into or out of Rmeish. He himself avoids the roads most bombed by Israeli aviation when he goes to the capital to visit his family.

Wadia, 36, retains enough clients to keep his hair salon open in the square. “I didn’t even close on October 8th. Not 9, not 10… This is safer than Beirut. The only thing I’m afraid of is that a party missile will fall here. Those of the Israelis are more precise. I don’t like Israelis, obviously, but they are no threat to me. There is no State here, only the party”, she emphasizes while she dries a client’s hair.

Wadia does not need to specify which party he is referring to. It is the Party of God, the meaning of the word Hezbollah. He says that his militiamen “have thrown grenades from the surrounding forests and tried to sneak” into Rmeish. “Once the kids from the town had to go out and tell them to leave,” he adds.

It refers to an episode last March that ended up gaining national importance. One morning, a young local identified two unknown cars driving near the town school. He approached, concluded that they were members of Hezbollah who were preparing to place a launcher of anti-tank projectiles, and warned the rest. The young people gathered to throw them out and the argument ended with the alleged militiamen shooting in the air to drive them away and the young people of Rmeish ringing the church bells to alert the rest.

The leader of the Christian phalanxes, Sami Gemayel, did not take long to pronounce: “Full solidarity with our people in Rmeish,” wrote Gemayel, nephew of the leader (the Bashir of the famous film Waltz with Bashir) whose murder in 1982 generated the well-known massacre of Palestinians and Shiites in Sabra and Shatila, with the then Israeli Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon, as “indirectly responsible” for looking the other way and continuing to illuminate the area, as determined by a commission of Israeli research.

“They have known since 2006 that we are people of peace. We don’t even know how to shoot. We have told them not to come here. We have gone to their houses to politely tell them to let us live in peace, quietly. In general they have accepted it, but some have tried it and we have kicked them out,” says Nayib El Amil, the priest whom everyone calls here. pere(father), legacy of the French colonial mandate (1920-1943), in which Lebanon obtained independence and the Maronites had a privileged position. Aware that few forget the alliance between Israel and the Maronite phalanxes during the occupation of southern Lebanon, El Amil challenges Hezbollah “to find a single Christian who has been a traitor since 2000.” It is when Israel withdrew its last soldiers and brought in its local allies during the occupation. His life was in danger if he stayed in Lebanon.

Hezbollah issued a statement to vehemently deny “false and malicious news” that “the Islamic Resistance attempted to fire rockets at the Zionist enemy from within the town of Rmeish or near the school or the town in general.” And he insisted that his fighters only open fire from unpopulated areas, so as not to put the civilian population at risk.

Whether it was true or a misunderstanding, the incident touched many wounds, healed worse or better. Already in 2022, Green Without Borders (an environmental NGO accused of being a cover for Hezbollah) set up a structure near the town. The neighbors became angry and even the Maronite patriarch, Bechara Boutros Al Rai, ended up intervening to achieve its dismantling.

With a confessional structure that dooms any idea of ​​shared citizenship to failure, Lebanon was bled dry during 15 years of civil war (1975-1990). Today, after decades of shifting and seemingly unnatural alliances, it is politically divided into two large blocs, especially with respect to its position regarding the power of Hezbollah. Since 2022, they have still not agreed on which Christian leader should occupy the presidency, a vacant position that elects the prime minister, whose mandate has also expired and is occupied on an interim basis by the Sunni Nayib Mikati.

Like the president’s seat, the public school is empty. Like all those in southern Lebanon, where the war has displaced 94,000 people and suspended in-person classes for safety reasons. Their 185 students between primary and technical follow them as best they can by videoconference.

A dozen hospital beds now occupy one of the classrooms. There are also boxes with medications and basic medical supplies. It is a lesson from the 2006 war, which began when Hezbollah launched a deadly surprise ambush against a military patrol in Israel (after six years of tension over the disputed Shebaa Farms) and Israel immediately invaded the area. Up to 20,000 displaced people ended up in the town, distributed between the convent, the school and private homes, recalls Alam, one of those responsible for making the school look like a field hospital since October 8 that they did not have to use. “The Israelis then bombed many roads, so many health workers could not reach the sites. We learned that wars start by surprise and we have to be prepared,” says Alam, with a crucifix around his neck and a tattoo with the words: “May your will be done.”

Although the inhabitants of Rmeish have not joined the fighting, the consequences have finally reached them. The situation has been escalating dangerously for days: on Tuesday, the Israeli army assassinated the highest-ranking Hezbollah commander in the eight months of fighting; and the militia took revenge with its largest wave of projectiles: 215. Israel has been bombing intensely for days, including with white phosphorus (as several human rights NGOs have proven) and with projectiles to start fires, like those they have caused on the other side of Hezbollah’s explosive drones border. On Wednesday, the fire began to engulf olive groves and tobacco plantations of the families of Rmeish, who had barely been able to cultivate or harvest, due to Israeli bombings. The town is still safe. The surroundings, no.

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