- Title: LEBANON: Hezbollah leader appears at Beirut rally
- Date: 2nd August 2013
- Summary: BEIRUT, LEBANON (AUGUST 02, 2013) (REUTERS) HEZBOLLAH LEADER SAYYED HASSAN NASRALLAH SPEAKING LIVE PAST SUPPORTERS CHEERING FOR HIM NASRALLAH AT THE END OF HIS SPEECH HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS CHEERING AND CHANTING AND WAVING HEZBOLLAH AND LEBANESE FLAGS NORTH LEBANON, LEBANON (JULY 29, 2013) (REUTERS) DISUSED SHOPPING CENTER WHERE SYRIAN REFUGEES FAMILIES ARE LIVING SYRIAN RE
- Embargoed: 17th August 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Lebanon
- Country: Lebanon
- Topics: Religion
- Reuters ID: LVA42KSURYK4BCDNIWSIYQC81ESR
- Story Text: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah emerged from hiding on Friday (August 2) to deliver his first major speech in years, addressing a rally in his southern Beirut stronghold in support of the Palestinian conflict against Israel.
"Some may think that the vanishing of Israel is a Palestinian interest. This is true, it is a Palestinian interest but not only that, it is the interest of the whole Islamic world. It is the interest of the whole Arab world when we say national interest, and it is also a national interest for every country of the region. You cannot differentiate here between Arab nation interests and the national one. Israel is a danger to Jordan and removing it is a Jordanian national interest, Israel is a danger to Egypt and removing it is an Egyptian national interest. Israel is a danger to Syria and removing it is a Syrian national interest. And Israel is a danger to Lebanon and removing it is a Lebanese national interest," Nasrallah told hundreds of supporters in his half-hour speech.
The Shi'ite cleric has lived mainly in the shadows, fearing assassination, since Hezbollah fought an inconclusive month-long war with Israel in 2006.
His last major speech came a month after that conflict, when he declared victory in front of thousands of supporters.
Since then, he has made occasional and brief public appearances - most recently last September - but no lengthy public address.
Hezbollah emerged in the 1980s as the most prominent Lebanese faction fighting Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, but in recent months has lent its military support to President Bashar al-Assad's battle against Syrian rebels.
The militant group helped Assad's forces recapture the Syrian border town from the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, an intervention which sharply escalated sectarian tension in Lebanon, where most Sunnis support the anti-Assad rebels.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah's enemies, including the United States, Israel and Britain, were trying to exploit the political tensions to drive a wedge between the Shi'ites and the rest of the region to marginalise their role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Security was heightened in the southern Beirut suburb where Nasrallah spoke, with gunmen stationed at intersections leading to the hall where he delivered his address. Buses were parked across the streets to prevent access to all but pedestrians.
In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, atop a mountain lined with olive and cypress trees, a disused shopping center houses nearly 1,000 refugees who have fled Syria's civil war.
In the space of a few months the once-empty four-storey complex has been swollen by an unending flow of people into Lebanon, becoming one of more than 360 informal settlements across a country overwhelmed by the refugee influx.
A refugee from the Syrian city of Homs, who identified herself only as Um Mohamed, said she was the first person to move into a vacant shop in the Tripoli shopping center last October.
Nine months later, the complex is full.
"We came here with no money. We first of all searched for a place to live in, this is the most important thing, then little by little, we started to secure how we will live and eat. We found this center and moved here to live," said Um Mohamed, adding that there are informal systems to maintain order and cleanliness in the building.
Empty shops have been fitted with plywood facades and sheets for doors.
Laundry hangs across the mall's inner courtyard where men recline on foam cushions and dozens of children roam about.
A young man cuts boys' hair while veiled women on the second storey sell carrots, lemons, watermelons and other produce.
Um Mohamed said they have become like a small state. She said the shopping center has been a blessing for her and her three children, providing them with better shelter than many Syrians are finding as they continue to stream across the border by the thousands.
Another family of 23 are living in a tiny house not far from the shopping center.
"We were living with God watching us and unbelievable shelling and bombings were happening worse than ever. We became homeless. Everyone ran away. My children and I found our way to Lebanon," said Ahmed Saleh Bakhass, father of the family.
Bakhass lives with his 16 children, two wives, the wife of his son and his three grand children.
They used to have money in Syria and first rented houses in Tripoli but then moved to the countryside running out of money.
"I am very, very, very miserable. I don't go out of the house. There are 23 people here. We had to sell our women's jewelry in the end, we had no choice," expressed Bakhass.
Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, 666,000 refugees have registered or are waiting to register with UNHCR in Lebanon, compared with 513,000 in Jordan, 431,000 in Turkey and more than 100,000 each in Iraq and Egypt.
In a sign of how rapidly the problem has grown, the number of registered refugees in the region has doubled in four months, alarming Syria's neighbors and leading at least one country - Jordan - to quietly turn back refugees at the border.
It is estimated that one million Syrians, including refugees and migrant labourers and their families, now live in Lebanon, a small and fragile Mediterranean state of 4 million people which is struggling with the burden of such a large and rapid influx.
According to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, most Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in rented apartments while others have taken shelter with relatives or hosts families.
Some Lebanese complain that the Syrians' arrival has led to sharp increases in rents and food prices, and put a strain on public services such as electricity, transport and hospitals. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None