US Independent
Catherine Shakdan
On April 18, 1996, Israel committed the unthinkable – Oblivious to international laws and human decency it deliberately targeted a United Nations compound in which over 800 refugees of war, all Lebanese nationals, sought refuge, as to strike fear at the heart of Lebanon and most specifically the Hezbollah.
Left bruised and humiliated by the Hezbollah advances and military superiority, Israel’s military commanders resorted to the most abject of all tactics to regain their footing – the targeting of a civilian population, hoping that by spilling enough innocent blood the people of Lebanon would recoil in horror and fright, unable to risk anymore of their children.
For well over a decade Lebanon has mourned and remembered its martyrs, it has cried the lives of its children, the lives which murderous Israel reaped apart before they could blossom. But as the blood of Qana has sipped into the soil, forever embedded in Lebanon’s history, an entire nation still await vindication, for there are crimes which can never and should never be forgiven.
Qana massacre has since become a symbol of resistance, a reminder of Israel’s wickedness and inhumanity. An illegitimate power which foundations have been built on Palestine stolen lands Israel is no more than a usurper, an institutional abomination which should never have to come to be. If ever anyone was in doubt of the treachery and sheer villainy and depravity of Israel and its Zionist leaders, Qana should stand a testimony.
April War
Following a three years truce -1993-1996 – Hezbollah resumed its shelling campaign against Israel in March 1996, keen to demonstrate its military capacity as to ward off the enemy and put an end to Israel’s reign of terror in southern Lebanon. It is important to note that if the international community has been keen to portray Hezbollah as the attacking force in 1996 April War, it is essentially to defend his people’s freedom and Lebanon territorial sovereignty that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – Secretary General of the Hezbollah – moved his men into position. It was more out of necessity and sense of duty than love for confrontation that the Hezbollah declared war on Israel.
Too often depicted as the innocent party by western powers, it is crucial to remember that it was in response to the unwarranted killing of two Lebanese nationals in Yater – Southern Lebanon – by an IDF missile that Hezbollah decided to retaliate against Zionists. If anything, Hezbollah uphold its duty toward Lebanon by opposing tyranny.
In the weeks which followed Hezbollah’ shelling of Israel, IDF Major-General Amiram Levine became only too aware of the giant his forces had awaken. For the first time in three years Israel felt inherently threatened in its positions in the Levant, faced with an enemy much bigger and potent than it ever anticipated.
It is to crush such threat that Israel launched on April 11, 1996 its so-called Operation Grapes of Wrath, what Lebanon will come to know as April War.
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