Foreign media: Will Allah and Israel go to war?

Reference News Network reported on August 7 that the website of the United States weekly "New Yorker" published an article entitled "Will Allah and Israel Go to War?" on July 22. by Dexter · Filkins. Excerpts from the full text are as follows:

This summer, I set out from Beirut and headed south along Route 51. The road leads along the Eastern Mediterranean to Israel. Beirut is a multifaith city, but less than an hour's drive south is the Shia heartland of Lebanon. Passing through the ancient city of Sidon, the Phoenicians, I entered an area where every town stood a mosque. The entire wall is painted with the sect's saints Hussein and Ali, and flags and other symbols proclaim the existence of Allah. Banners were hung in every village along the route showing the faces of Allah soldiers who had died fighting Israel. In Seydigan, men were clearing the rubble of a house that had been razed by Israel bombs the night before, and a Allah flag fluttered over the rubble. One of the men said to me, "It's something that happens every day. ”

"War is all around us"

Allah has been in constant conflict with Israel since its inception in the 80s, but in the past year, the fighting has been dangerously intense.

On October 7 last year, Hamas militants crossed Israel's southwestern border, killing more than 1,100 people. The next day, Allah opened fire on Israel territory from the north, firing a barrage of rockets that triggered Israel's retaliatory attacks. Since then, shelling and bombardment have intensified on both sides, raising fears of a full-scale war that would devastate the region.

The further south you go, the more desolate the scenery becomes. In Tibnin, as two ambulances sped past the traffic, I passed a street sign that showed 17 more Allah members had fallen. The street sign reads: "They paid with their lives!" "In the village of Hadassah, a cemetery is almost entirely filled with Allah members, and each grave bears a picture of a young man who died young.

I arrived in the town of Rumaish, a few hundred meters from the border with Israel, which stood intact in a sight of rubble and tombstones. Almost all of the villagers are members of the Maronite Catholic Church. Since there were no Shia Muslims and no Allah, Israel planes and artillery forces barely attacked the town. A local priest, Najib ·, said to me: "The war is on our side, but it is not here. "He invited me into his living room, and we sat in the middle of a group of Maronite saints.

The inhabitants of Rumaish are in a unique position in this war. Father Najib pointed to a hilltop a few hundred yards to the south, where there is an antenna tower that marks the border with Israel. He then pointed to the neighboring village of Aitashib, to the northwest. "It was a Allah village," he said. We're in the middle. ”

He said that since the beginning of the conflict, Allah militants had twice entered the town of Rumaish, set up Katyusha rocket groups and fired at Israel. Last time, in December, a Israel warplane bombed a home occupied by the Lebanon Allah party. Later, Najib sent an unwelcome message to the group. "We told them, 'We can't stop you from passing through our town, but we're not going to let you fire from here and put your missiles somewhere else,'" he said. ”

Allah fighters left, but fighting continued across the hill in Aitasab. A few hours before my arrival, armed men there fired rockets at the border, Najib said. A moment later, Israel's bombs fell, the explosion was so violent that the earth shook.

Mr. Najib, 73, has seen wars and skirmishes come and go, but says the conflict is the worst because the solution is so uncertain.

On the slopes from his village to the border, there were once tobacco fields and olive groves, which are now scorched by white phosphorus bombs. The Israelis used white phosphorus bombs to deprive Allah fighters of cover. International treaties prohibit the use of white phosphorus bombs against civilians, which burn through the body and cannot be extinguished with water. Najib said large pieces of white phosphorus bomb fragments fell on Rumaish and they burned for four days.

"There's nothing to make a living in this town because no one can go to the fields," he said. Even so, the villagers seem reluctant to blame Israel. Najib said: "The Israelis have not treated us unfairly. "When we talked, he also did not criticize Allah. "I need to be careful with my wording," he said. ”

On that day, Najib gave four sermons, one at the Transfiguration Church and one at the 300-year-old St. George's Church. The villagers were staring at him. "If I leave town now, everybody will leave," he said. "At the same time, they are far from the Israel border and from the village next door. Najib said: "No one here dares to enter Aitasab. There were only armed men there. ”

As we walked to Najib's porch, another man introduced himself, but he didn't dare to give his name, saying only that his name was Paul. He said he fled his home in the nearby Christian village of Kauza a few weeks ago. Allah militants regularly fire rockets at Israel, and the village of Kauza is too small to resist. Paul said that each volley of Allah triggers an almost instantaneous counterattack from Israel, so the village of Kauza is largely deserted. He and the others went back just to check on the situation at home and to take care of the elderly who were too weak to leave. I asked him if he could take me with him next time he returned to Kauza village, and he said, "Do you want to die?" ”

Paul told me that, like the rest of Lebanon, the village of Kauza is held hostage by a conflict that could escalate. "Allah will drag us into the war," he said. "Allah leaders have said they will continue to attack until Israel stops its operations in Gaza, and Israel does not intend to agree to that condition. At the same time, cross-border attacks have become more threatening.

An open war would be devastating. Allah is a stronger and better equipped organization than Hamas. It is believed to have at least 150,000 missiles and rockets, many of which are capable of striking targets in Israel. In the inevitable counterattack, Lebanon, which has been uncomfortably embraced by Allah since the 80s of the last century, is likely to be destroyed.

"We must resist"

In June, I visited Dacia, a noisy neighborhood south of Beirut and home to the headquarters of Allah. I drove my car and Allah scouts rode through the streets on motorcycles, lined with shops and billboards for Botox injections and breast augmentation. Since 2006, Dacia has undergone reconstruction, and the low building I am going to has no Allah logo. My translator was a liberal Christian woman from Beirut who knew nothing about the conservative areas of her hometown and needed to ask a friend to show her how to wrap her head in a headscarf.

When we arrived, we left our phones in the car because we knew that if we didn't stay in the car, we would have to hand them over later. In the building, I met a tall young man named Ali, who grew up in West Africa, where his parents, like many Lebanon, worked several trades. A few minutes later, Ali took me outside to another car. He said, "Come with me." "We drove to the second building and he took me to a room with no windows and no decorations.

A few minutes later, Naaim · Kassem, deputy general secretary of the Allah Party, wearing a white turban, came in. Allah leader Hassan · Nasrallah is playful and often irascible, while Qasim is diligent and serious – not quite like a warrior. He worked as a chemistry teacher for many years before helping to establish Allah. His 463-page book, Allah: The Story Inside, is now in its eighth edition. This book is the official statement of the Allah movement's history and philosophy. Its core objectives, Kassem wrote, include the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Lebanon and the destruction of the State of Israel, "where the implantation of the Zionist entity is illegal — it is a cancerous gland."

The 71-year-old sits upright, his feet flat on the floor, rubbing his hands together. He told me that Allah had entered the war to pressure Israel to abandon its operations in Gaza. He said Israel's actions were aimed at "exterminating" the Palestinian people. "How can we sit idly by? We must resist. ”

Allah has sought to contain a sizable portion of the Israel Defense Forces on the northern border and to disrupt life in Israel by forcing a mass withdrawal. "We are not seeking to start a new war, nor are we seeking to expand it, but to make Israel concerned about the continuation of the war in Gaza," he said. ”

He told me that at first, Allah fired rockets no more than 3 miles across the border in response to Israel's counterattack. But he admits that the conflict has its own logic. "We don't actually have the confidence that we can control this war," he said. ”

Qasim spoke as if he had been rehearsed beforehand—faithfully, without deviation. Halfway through the conversation, my interpreter complained that she couldn't hear because her headscarf was wrapped too tightly. A Allah press officer who was observing the meeting pulled her headscarf back, revealing her ears — a striking provocation in the conservative Islamic world. Qasim pretended not to notice.

When I asked him about himself, he became very active. Thirty years ago, he gave up his quiet life as a teacher to become a militia commander – always in hiding, often underground, constantly battling the threat of violent death. Does he miss his old life? "I'm living my best life right now – I'm not going to give it up," he said. Who says we don't go to beaches and restaurants? We exercise, we eat whatever we want, and we live our lives to the fullest. ”

What about his boss, Nasrallah? Qasim replied, "He is the happiest man on earth!" ”

"How can you feel safe?"

During my visit, I went to Malekia, a kibbutz farm in Israel, a few hundred meters from the border. Before the war began, Malekia had a population of about 500 people and was surrounded by vineyards and fruit trees. Today, it is almost empty, and the fields have been blown up. The leader of the collective farm, a soldier of the Israel Wehrmacht, Itai · Kreuz, drove me around in a golf cart.

"Here, on your right," he said, pointing to a collapsed house, "it was hit by a rocket." He pointed to farms and orchards that had been burned by Allah attacks and said: "The rockets came yesterday, the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday." "A little further on is the Malekia Tourist Hotel, where tourists from Israel used to come to enjoy the countryside. "It's empty now, of course," Croyz said. ”

Croyz came to Malakia in 2014 and, like many Israelis, he was drawn to the idyllic atmosphere and affordable housing. "It's my dream to live in a place like this," he said. He often saw Allah fighters crossing the border in pickup trucks. "They would take pictures of us," he said. "Sometimes Israel planes bomb them, but most of the time the border is calm. Then there was the attack in October last year, and the evacuation order. "People come and see their houses and trees every once in a while, but it's an abandoned and deserted town," Croyz said. ”

The mass withdrawal has left Israel's leaders in a painful dilemma. Temporary resettlement housing costs more than $100 million a month, and the Government has effectively abandoned a large part of its own territory. A member of the Israel cabinet told me: "This is not sustainable. People need to go home. ”

In a café in Tel Aviv, I met Shay · Levy and Alona · Gofflin. They fled Malakia with their two young children on October 7 last year and have been living in a government-funded two-bedroom apartment ever since. Levy used to be a tour guide, leading tours to the Balkans, and now gives lectures about the region at community centers; His wife, who used to be the director of cultural programs, now works as a nutritionist. While they fled Malakia, their son Kerem attended kindergarten there, and he recently completed the school year in Tel Aviv. Gofflin said to me, "Most of the time, we're fine. We have a life of our own. ”

However, the future of the family is uncertain. Just before the October 7 attack last year, they bought a plot of land in Malakia and planned to build a house there. In Tel Aviv, a similar plot of land was far beyond their ability to buy, and they feared that the threat of war would prevent them from selling their homeland. "We don't know if we will go back to Malakia in the future," Govlin said. How can we possibly feel safe? Maybe that place is finished. ”

The final variable is Israel's national psyche, which has been severely damaged by the government's failure to protect the country on October 7 last year. During the week I was there, the resolve to crack down on Hamas did not seem to wane, but a mood of self-doubt seemed to grapple over the country. In one conversation, I asked a senior Israel national security official how he could be sure about Allah. "We have confidence," he said, and he stopped, "but we're not going to boast about our intelligence." Especially after October 7. We are capable, but we have to be humble. ”

Allah does not seem to be humble at all. The group's ultimate dream is not just to thwart the Israel Defense Forces in southern Lebanon. In the words of its founding charter, its ultimate goal is Israel's "final annihilation and liberation of holy Jerusalem from the clutches of occupation."

When I asked Allah commander Habib if it was possible to withdraw troops from the border to avoid war, he pointed in the direction of Israel and said, "I will only go in that direction." (Compiled by Wang Haifang)