Israel Matzav: Hezbullah planned attack on Israeli borders with Lebanon and Syria on May 15

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Hezbullah planned attack on Israeli borders with Lebanon and Syria on May 15

Lenny Ben David presents evidence that Hezbullah was behind the invasions of Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon on May 15.

Below are excerpts from an article written by one of the Maroun al Ras participants, Nour Samaha, a 28-year-old Swiss-Lebanese freelance writer based in Beirut. Presumably, Israeli security officials are studying similar photographs and the accounts of the May 15 attack on Israel's borders in preparation for the next onslaught.

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Sunday 15th May, 2011

7.30am, Nada calls. "The buses are already full and they told us if we want to hitch a ride we'd have to stand the whole way down, is there space with you?" The buses are full? Big smile on my face. "Of course!" After a stop for coffee, we began our journey down, with Ahmad leading our two-car convoy. It was very unlikely we would get lost though, because every kilometre or so we'd pass half a dozen buses decked out with Palestinian flags, clearly heading in the same direction as us. And if somehow we missed those, someone had kindly taken the time to signpost the entire journey down with directions to Palestine. I guess for future reference, you know, after we've liberated it and we can make plans to hang out in Haifa for the weekend. Forward planning; I like.

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Trying to be clever, Ahmad searched for an alternate route to beat the crowds to Maroun el Ras. Clearly the organisers, in conjunction with Hizbullah, had predicted there would be people with Ahmad's mentality, and blocked all other roads leading to the hill top, ensuring complete control of the masses of people descending on the border from all corners of the country. And it was very well executed. Herding us like sheep into a pen, we got in line behind each other, slowly moving forward.

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From the start we had taken the decision to go to the border fence, so once we found the others, we headed down towards the fence. Looking into the distance at the border, one could see a hail of stones being thrown over the fence, almost automatic, as if in time with some invisible beat. Some had even managed to throw a couple of flags onto the fence. As the shots continued to ring out, news quickly travelled up the hill, with people passing on unconfirmed statistics of the dead and wounded. "1 dead." "4 dead." "10 wounded." The shots continued.

At the bottom of the hill was a dirt road. By this time it was probably around 1pm, and the [Lebanese] army had started to gather, forming a blockade to prevent protestors from crossing into the field which led to the fence. We had seen scores of people retreating from the fence following several shots from the Israelis, before returning, hurling stones with renewed anger. Attempting to pass the blockade, we were at first politely asked to back away, before being roughly pushed back by the army, who were shouting at us to back up. "But we want to be at the fence," we pleaded with them. "What? You want to go over there are get shot? Are you not seeing the bodies they're bringing back?" One soldier responded aggressively.

But we were. We were seeing the bodies alright. We were seeing them, boys as young as 15, critically wounded. We were seeing them, wrapped in make-shift blankets and stretchers made of keffiyehs and Palestinian flags tied together. We were seeing them, covered in blood from gunshot wounds to the head, chest, or abdomen. And that's why we wanted to be at the fence. The more bodies were pulled away from the fence, whether dead or wounded, the more we, as a crowd, wanted to be there. To help, to support, to get angry, to chant, to do whatever was necessary to defend.

[Lebanese] army got tetchy with the crowd's pushing and shoving, and fired warning shots in the air. Followed by another round. People ducked to the ground to avoid the spray of bullets, unsure of what just took place. This wasn't supposed to happen; isn't the army supposed to fire at the enemy? Wasn't the enemy on the other side of the fence currently killing our protestors? The crowd reacted quickly, picking up whatever was around them and throwing them at the army; sticks, stones, bottles. A rain of objects fell on the soldiers, who retaliated with another round of shots. People started screaming at them; "Why??" "You should be firing at the Israelis not at us!" "Use your fire on the Israelis!" "You fire on your own people?!"

At one point the shots rang out. Everyone scrambled to the ground, face down, while shouting "watch out for the mines!", "Heads down! Keep your heads down!". But within seconds, everyone was on their feet again, running towards the fence, with their arms cocked and ready to throw. It would take about a minute before you heard "ambulance!", "injured!", or "killed!" as a result of the latest barrage of bullets, causing the protesters to get riled up even further. This did not happen just once, or twice. This was happening all the time. It got to a point where some people stopped ducking the bullets.