SRIFA (Lebanon): They use three-digit numbers as code names, live off canned tuna, and tape over their rings so an accidental twinkle doesn’t give away their position to Israeli warplanes.
Among the Hezbollah fighters prowling what remains of the heavily bombed south Lebanese village of Srifa are a pair of middle school history teachers who have given up their grade books for two-way radios and Kalashnikovs.
Over cups of coffee and the din of Hezbollah’s FM radio station narrating developments on the front lines, they opened up to visitors recently and offered a glimpse into the guerrillas’ secretive world.
“This is the battle we have long expected and long prepared for,” says Haj Rabia Abu Hussein — known to his soldiers simply as “103.”
“I know my mission. I must make my rockets hit Israel,” he says matter of factly.
The 40-year-old field commander, who oversees military activities in one sector — generally comprising three villages — of the Hezbollah-dominated south, says he has fired many such rockets since the conflict began 21 days ago.
As Hussein talks, he fingers his Motorola radio, his means of communication with his soldiers farther afield. He wears trainers, a blue denim buttondown shirt and a baseball cap that he slings backwards when the conversation turns intimate.
Hussein sits beside Abu Mohammad, 44, a long-time friend in Reeboks, a loose fitting T-shirt and cargo pants.
In their fashion choices, mild manners, and neatly trimmed beards, Abu Mohammad — code name “121” — and Haj Hussein very much fit the Hezbollah mold.
They shift seamlessly from civilian garb to soldiers’ wear, they say.
“Our people are outfitted as soldiers, but when we are among civilians then we dress normally. When we are in the field, we dress as soldiers,” says Hussein.
“It’s not reasonable to walk around in military uniforms and carry rifles when, for example, the Red Cross comes into town.”
The bucolic farming village they grew up in is one of dozens of similar hamlets scattered across these hills, where Hezbollah grew into a potent fighting force and popular political party. Today these villages are absorbing the brunt of the Israeli military might.
The bombs fall day and night, levelling buildings, strafing hill tops, and taking hundreds of lives — over 900 since the battle began. The Shia fighters are outgunned, outmanned, and confronting one of the most technologically savvy armies in the world.
Still the Hezbollah rockets continue to fall on northern Israel.
Hussein and his comrade-in-arms Abu Mohammad explain how the Shia militants continue to dodge Israel’s wrath and live to fight another day.
“We use local knowledge,” says Hussein. “On the radio, we talk about a certain tree or a certain cliff. How will the Israelis understand that?”
Hussein and Mohammad, not their real names, have grown up together in these villages, and frolicked in the surrounding hills as young boys.
In their current struggle, this shared history of fellow soldiers is a powerful weapon that helps them evade Israeli intelligence, they say.
“For example Haj used to love someone about 20 years ago,” says Abu Mohammad. “So I’ll tell him, ‘Haj, go and meet me at the house of the girl you used to love, who melted your heart.”
Hussein pulls a laminated card from his pocket. On it are the names of his fighters and their positions, along with corresponding code numbers and code names. “Don’t think that we use only primitive means of communication,” he cautions.
They speak to the more routine aspects of their struggle as well: their daily diet, what they refer to as “the mujahedeen’s lunch.”
“We eat mostly canned food, mortadella, tuna, and some chocolate,” says Hussein. “But yesterday we had fried potatoes and sometimes we make eggs.”
Hussein joined the militant group that would soon evolve into Hezbollah in 1982. Then they were battling an Israeli occupation that stretched to the suburbs of Beirut. It took 18 years of sporadic guerrilla attacks to convince the Israelis to finally withdraw from all of Lebanon.
Hussein has covered a large ring on his right index finger with tape. The ring glistens in the sun and might be picked up by a trolling Israeli drone, he fears, but it’s his lucky charm, engraved with a prayer to Hazrat Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph. “It says ‘Ya Ali’ and it protects me. It’s been blessed at a number of religious shrines,” he says.
The story of Hazrat Ali and his son Imam Hussein, who was slain in a battle in Karbala, imbue Shias with a centuries-old culture of suffering, resistance, and survival that they are falling back on now in their fight against Israel. They pepper their narrative of resistance with other references to Islamic history as well.
“Muslims have the battle between Muhammad (pbuh) and the Koraysh,” says Abu Mohammad, referring to the Holy Prophet’s early struggle against Makkah’s merchant class.
“There was a big difference in the numbers between the two parties, but the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) fought and won. God said don’t worry I will assist you with angels you can’t see.”
Last Friday night, Israel withdrew its soldiers from two Lebanese villagers. These fighters, like others here, hailed the retreat as a sign of victory. Now, they are brimming with confidence.
“Israelis said their priority is to destroy Hezbollah and then they changed and said it is to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons,” says Hussein. “Then they said they would occupy Lebanon up to the Littani River. Then they said just six kilometers, and now they’re saying two kilometres.”
“Israel has admitted that they have failed and can’t achieve their objectives.”
“It’s like we have a holy guarantee of victory,” says Mohammad. “If I am martyred, I am victorious and if we are victorious then we are victorious.”
“We don’t love killing,” says Hussein. “We look at all people as brothers. We deal with people as people, regardless of religion, but we will defend our land, our honour and our dignity. Just as we love martyrdom we also have love for life; we don’t want to die just to die.”—AFP
