Hezbollah flags mask darker mood in Lebanon village

AITAROUN, Lebanon, Nov 21: Yellow Hezbollah flags flutter over the flower-strewn marble tombs of six men killed in combat with Israel during the July-August war in Lebanon.

The ''martyrs'' lie in a special section of the cemetery in the battered Shi'ite Muslim border village of Aitaroun, often lauded in speeches by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for the fierce battles his guerrillas fought here in the summer.

Aitaroun, only 3 km from the frontier, paid a heavy price in destruction. Hezbollah posters trumpet a ''divine victory'' over Israel, but many villagers are in sombre mood as they try to repair shattered houses and livelihoods.

Some openly criticise Hezbollah, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid sparked the 34-day war.

Others recall better economic times during Israel's 22-year occupation when men from Aitaroun found well-paid work in Israel or with its proxy Christian-led militia in the south.

All voice hope for a more peaceful and prosperous future, but in these stony hills where farmers eke out a living from olives, tobacco and goats, few seem convinced it's around the corner.

''After the war, life became very hard,'' said Nawal Murad, 33, gesturing with a smile at the disorder in her damaged home. ''We need lots of money for repairs. And there is no money.'' Murad, who fled the Israeli bombing with her five children aged 4 to 16, said she had received 2,600 dollars from Hezbollah to help with repairs and had borrowed more from relatives.

The salary of her husband Kamal, a 50-year-old elementary school teacher, covers day-to-day expenses, but she said the war had wiped out their tobacco crop, which normally yields enough extra income to pay their children's school fees.

Murad said nine months' hard work had gone up in smoke. ''We had been picking it at the time of the invasion. When we came back we found it all on the ground, spoiled. We burned it.'' SAUDI HOUSING Some outside aid is visible on an isolated hillside outside Aitaroun -- a score of basic, prefabricated houses donated by Saudi Arabia. All are empty, awaiting their first occupants.

The white prefabs look unsuited to large families. ''Nobody can live in boxes,'' one man sniffed, saying most people whose homes were ruined by bombs had already moved in with relatives.

Squealing children in blue-and-grey uniforms play outside Ibrahim Toubeh's school. Classes are crammed into an annex hastily fixed up after a bomb flattened the main building.

''Now we have 500 pupils, all on top of each other,'' said Toubeh, 52, showing visitors the bare concrete floors and wood partitions thrown up in the basement to make extra classrooms.

He said he had received no money from the government or Hezbollah to repair the private school or his damaged house. Toubeh said the local economy had been livelier before Israeli troops quit the south in 2000 under relentless Hezbollah attack. ''There were annoyances -- detentions and checkpoints. We all suffered from those, but there was more cash around.'' He said Israel's conduct in the July-August war was much worse than when it first invaded Lebanon in 1978 to expel Palestinian guerrillas who then ruled the roost in the south.

''In this war, they did not distinguish between civilians and fighters. They bombed houses, children, cars with white flags.

That's not human. It changed my view of the Israelis,'' he said.

Israel says it does not deliberately target civilians.

Toubeh said people were still jumpy, despite the presence of Lebanese army troops and extra U.N. peacekeeping forces which deployed in the south after hostilities ceased on Aug 14.

''Of course, everyone is afraid of a new war,'' he said.

STARTING OVER

Akil Mansour has reopened his grocery store after patching up rocket holes, but is eager to show the damage to his new house, where his family had spent only 51 days before the war.

''Everything was destroyed, the doors, walls, everything,'' said his son Ahmed, 20, speaking in an enthusiastic if flawed English.

''When I saw the first UNIFIL tank in the village, I felt safe,'' he said, showing where the Israelis had knocked holes in a bedroom wall for a sniper post during the fighting.

This relatively rich family has been able to repair the house with their own money, but Ahmed sees no future here.

''All the boys my age want to leave Lebanon. There's no work and no money, I don't want to stay here,'' he said.

With an electrician's diploma from a UN vocational course, he hopes to join a cousin in Europe, but says it's impossible to obtain a visa if you are young, unmarried and Shi'ite.

''The Europeans say Muslims are terrorists, because of Hezbollah, but I'm not like that,'' he said, describing Hezbollah as gangsters bent on imposing Iranian-inspired Islamic rules.

''We are a new generation, but this generation is being destroyed. Hezbollah tells us you have to hate America, hate Israel, hate Europeans if you want to be a good Muslim.

''We don't want war with anyone, we want to live in peace.''

Reuters