Hizbullah rises from the ruins

Source: sundayherald.com, 08-10-2006
Ayt al-Shab, south Lebanon - HUNDREDS of yellow Hizbullah flags flutter over the ruined south Lebanese village of Ayt al-Shaab, interspersed with the maroon and white flag of Qatar.
Hizbullah held in this mainly Shia Muslim village - or what little is left of it - against "Israeli" ground attacks during the war of July and August. Qatar has pledged millions of dollars to rebuild it.
Conspicuous by its absence here is the cedar tree flag of Lebanon, which is meant to represent all the people of this divided nation - Shia and Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze.
"Why would we put up the Lebanese flag when the state doesn't do anything for us?" demanded Marian Srour, 39, one of hundreds of residents who returned to the village after the August 14 ceasefire.
"Only Hizbullah is helping us," said her cousin, Fatma, 34. "The state hasn't done anything for us. We don't even see them here. If Hizbullah wasn't here, a lot of people wouldn't have come back to the village.
"Hizbullah on the first day started to give water and electricity."
The push to rebuild Lebanon after 34 days of devastating bombardment is proving at least as divisive as the war itself, splitting Lebanon into pro and anti-Hizbullah factions.
To Shia Muslims such as the Srour family Hizbullah provides both political and spiritual leadership. One of the family's young men, 21-year-old Mohammed Moussa, died fighting for Hizbullah, and the area where their houses once stood, overlooked by "Israeli" border positions only three kilometres away, was smashed entirely to rubble.
But no sooner was the war over then Hizbullah officials arrived with $15,000 to pay for a year's temporary accommodation, with promises of more cash to help them rebuild.
Much of Hizbullah's wealth is believed to come from its chief sponsor, oil-rich Iran, and partly in order to counterbalance the growing influence of Iran and Hizbullah a conference of mainly Western and Muslim states has pledged almost $1 billion to help Lebanon's government rebuild shattered homes and infrastructure.
A consortium of Saudi investors last week launched a bit to raise $2bn more.
But Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government, dogged by the stagnation and infighting endemic to Lebanon's openly sectarian political system, has been slow to set up mechanisms to account for and disburse the money.
Shia Lebanese, whose communities in south Beirut and along the border took the worst of the bombardment, contrast Hizbullah's swift offers of cash payments with the government's foot-dragging.
Lebanese army soldiers newly deployed in the south joined with Hizbullah's own unofficial effort to largely clear the village of unexploded "Israeli" cluster bombs, one of which wounded three local children last month.
With the UN estimating that as many as one million of these lethal duds could be scattered around south Lebanon, cluster bombs are emerging as one of the biggest challenges for the reconstruction.
Ten days ago 29-year-old Munsef Mahmoud al-Ali was helping to clear the rubble for his neighbour's damaged house on the outskirts of Tyre when he unwittingly triggered a cluster bomb hidden in the wreckage. The young man suffered chest and arm wounds and lost an eye.
"We knew there were other bomblets in the area so I was very careful when I was working," he said, "but this one was really well hidden in the rubble."