The Israeli attack on Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr is a severe humiliation for the militia. This makes many of the militia’s supporters in Beirut want to see blood, as a visit to the site shows.
A picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Dahiye. In the background the house destroyed in the Israeli attack on Fuad Shukr.
“We will never accept this,” says the young man with the clean-shaven beard, sitting in the kitchen of a simple apartment in Dahiye. The 21-year-old, who wants to be called only Ahmed, normally works as a car mechanic in the Hezbollah-dominated suburb in the south of Beirut. But on Tuesday evening, like many men here, he became a warrior at heart.
Shortly after 8 p.m. local time, a massive explosion shook the district. A short time later, it was clear: Israel had targeted Fuad Shukr, a high-ranking commander of Hezbollah – the Shiite militia allied with Iran that controls large parts of Lebanon. It was the response that had been expected for days to the suspected Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan Heights, in which twelve children and young people were killed last weekend.
“I immediately drove to the scene of the attack on a motorbike with a few friends,” says Ahmed. “We wanted to show that we were ready to go into battle.” The young mechanic carries a pistol on his hip. But that doesn’t mean he is a member of Hezbollah, he says. He didn’t know Fuad Shukr’s name until now either.
Everyone wants revenge
But none of that matters. “Hezbollah is in everyone’s heart here,” says Ahmed. “You can’t imagine how angry we are. We don’t care what the consequences are. We want Hezbollah to strike back with all its might.” The young man is not the only one who speaks like this in Dahiye. The call for revenge can be heard all over the district. And this despite the fact that Shukr’s death has not even been officially confirmed.
Because Tuesday’s attack hit Hezbollah to the core. Dahiye, this noisy district with its swarms of motorbikes and freely hanging power cables, is not just any place. It is the beating heart of the “Muqawameh” – the resistance – as the Shiite fighting organization is exclusively called here.
In Dahiye, their leaders were previously considered safe. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently said that an attack on the district where the most important institutions of Hezbollah are based would trigger an unprecedented reaction. And a few weeks ago, at the end of the Shiite Ashura festival, despite all the tension, Hezbollah scouts dressed up in wine-red shirts marched through the streets, accompanied by a brass band.
For Hezbollah, the attack is a humiliation
Now the district is preparing for a possible war. The streets are emptier than usual, there are security guards dressed in black everywhere, eyeing every stranger with hostility. In many houses there are only men left, their wives and children have been sent away for safety. They know what could threaten them. In 2006, after the last war with Israel, the district resembled a field of rubble.
The residents got a small taste of what might come last night. An Israeli drone fired several missiles into the building where Shukr and other Hezbollah officials were believed to be. The precision attack destroyed the upper floors of the dreary concrete block. The next day, rubble still lay on the street. Otherwise, however, the building remained strangely intact.
For Hezbollah, the blow is a humiliation. How is it possible that the Israelis managed to hit such an important commander in the middle of their homeland despite being on high alert and taking all precautionary measures? In Dahiye, where even in normal times there is deep mistrust of strangers, sheer paranoia is now spreading. Residents everywhere are discussing how things could have come to this.
Shukr was apparently a formative figure
“They definitely have spies here. Technology alone cannot explain this,” says a man in a pink shirt who lives not far from the impact site. He does not want to give his name. But he would be willing to talk – although not on the street. He therefore asks to come up to his apartment, which is empty. He had already sent his wife and children away the night before.
Hezbollah has no choice but to react harshly, he says, smoking one cigarette after another in his living room. The 62-year-old says he used to be a fighter himself. First with the Palestinians, later with the secular Amal movement, then with Hezbollah. He knew Shukr personally. “I haven’t seen him for 20 years. But he was a great fighter, worth more than 10,000 men.”
Shukr, who helped to build up Hezbollah, is considered a key figure not only among older fighters. He is said to have been a close adviser to Nasrallah and was responsible for Hezbollah’s rocket troops. This is another reason why the Israeli attack has put the militia in a difficult position. Although Hezbollah launched a border war in support of Hamas on October 8, it has so far seemed unwilling to go into open battle against its arch-enemy.
“In Gaza they can get through it too”
But now the situation has changed. After the attack in Beirut and the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran a few hours later, the militia is not only under pressure from its supporters. It also has to restore its defensive capabilities. For the troops, which rely on strict secrecy and whose commanders are often not even known to those close to them, the killing of Shukr must have been a severe shock.
The militia will probably have to attack either Tel Aviv – or at least an important military facility somewhere deep in Israel, the residents of Dahiye suspect. Others are even calling for an open war. But not everyone is enthusiastic about that. “Of course I’m worried,” says Khodr Hamed, who lives on a street a few blocks from the site of the drone attack and is sitting in a friend’s kitchen. “After all, I have a wife and children.”
Hamed, who lived in England for a long time, ran a small bakery until recently. “I had to close it down, though,” he says. The reason is the severe economic crisis that has plagued Lebanon for years and has hit the poor in districts like Dahiye particularly hard. Hamed experienced the last war in 2006. It was terrible, bombs were falling everywhere, he says. This time it will probably be even worse. “But in Gaza they get through it too – and keep fighting anyway.”
