[IsraelTimes] Over 1.4 million Lebanese from Hezbollah’s support base have fled their homes. And while the terror group attempts to retain their loyalty, some are calling for its demise
Ahmad Yassine, a Lebanese Shiite commentator with a large following on the social media platform X, wrote last Thursday that Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem
... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies...
, signaled the group’s capitulation as a military force in his latest address last week.
"It was clear to anyone who heard the pre-recorded speech that it was a declaration of complete surrender," Yassine wrote. "Hezbollah has fallen, all it has to do now is announce the date of the funeral," he wrote.
While Yassine’s remarks accord with the group’s heavily diminished military capabilities and decimated leadership, not everyone within Hezbollah’s Shiite support base shares his conclusion — despite bearing the brunt of Israel’s ongoing escalation against the Iran-backed organization.
Over 1.4 million people — nearly a quarter of Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
’s population — have fled their homes since Hezbollah initiated hostilities against Israel on October 8, 2023, according to recent figures published by the UN quoting Lebanese government data.
The overwhelming majority of those currently displaced fled after Israel escalated strikes two months ago, targeting largely Shiite Hezbollah strongholds across southern Lebanon, the eastern Beqaa Valley, and Beirut’s Dahiyeh district. In the first 11 months of the conflict that Hezbollah instigated, approximately 110,000 Lebanese had evacuated.
Lebanese citizens fleeing southern villages amid Israeli Moslem — has stressed the importance of maintaining "civil peace," and even Hezbollah’s rivals, including the Christian Lebanese Forces
A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb...
party, have largely complied by moderating their political rhetoric and urging supporters not to stoke tensions, the danger on the ground remains.
Residents recently told Rooters that conflict often centers around schools that have welcomed displaced people. Hezbollah-allied parties are said to have seized control of who comes and goes and what enters some of those institutions.
Sectarian tensions have resurfaced regularly in recent years, and some analysts have already warned of a possible outbreak of a new civil war.
Hezbollah expert Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently told The Times of Israel that as the terror group loses ground on the battlefield, it may resort to using guns to maintain its grip over Lebanon.
Some pundits have warned that a marginalization of Hezbollah from the Lebanese political scene after it is defanged militarily could have strong repercussions on Hezbollah’s Shiite support base.
"The community is traumatized, dislocated, and heavily armed, without a leader capable of controlling the widespread resentment and humiliation Shiites must feel as the only community targeted by Israel," wrote Michael Young, a Beirut-based Lebanon expert for the Carnegie Endowment, in a recent commentary.
"Hezbollah will spread a narrative that they [Lebanese politicians] exploited the Israeli onslaught to once again marginalize Shiites, and this message will allow Hezbollah to absorb and redirect internally the anger many in the community must feel for having lost everything," he added.
GROWING DISCONTENT WITH HEZBOLLAH AMONG SOME SHIITES
Hezbollah has positioned itself as the defender of Shiites, capitalizing on the community’s anger and vulnerability to maintain loyalty.
However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
prominent voices within the Shiite community are challenging the terror group’s authority, echoing the criticism of several Lebanese Christian leaders.
Prominent Lebanese Shia holy man Ali al-Amin, a longstanding thorn in the side of Hezbollah, has consistently called for the terror group to disarm and hand control to the Lebanese state.
In a recent interview with the Saudi al-Arabiya channel, al-Amin argued that Hezbollah is a permanent threat to stability, and its actions have endangered Lebanon without benefiting Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
In a video address on November 14 published on his website, the holy man praised Lebanon as a "model of coexistence based on openness and tolerance among the various religious groups," and condemned "those who took advantage of the weakness of the Lebanese state to establish mini-states."
"As long as there are weapons outside the control of the state, there will always be unrest," he said.
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