Christians and Hezbollah unite against ‘Epstein empire’
The complexity of Lebanon is apparent in few places more than Ras Baalbek, a Catholic Christian town in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa Valley close to the borders with Syria.
The town, which boasts two Byzantine churches, has teamed up with Hezbollah in a bid to preserve its heritage and protect its 6,000 devout Catholic residents.
So close are the two communities that the Iranian-backed militant group buys a Christmas tree each year for the village.
“The relationship between the village and Hezbollah is stronger than with the Pope,” Rifiat Nasrallah, 60, a quarryman and village leader whose marble sarcophagi line the village cemetery, told The Telegraph during a visit in the midst of war.
“The Vatican did nothing for us but Hezbollah spilt their blood to protect us. The Pope only has prayers.”
Two soldiers from the Lebanese army, whose political leaders have vowed to disarm Hezbollah, sit in Mr Nasrallah’s home as he explains the local politics. A crucifix hangs next to a portrait of Hassan Nasrallah (no relation), Hezbollah’s former secretary general, on one of the room’s walls.
The Bekaa Valley is beautiful, dangerous and cosmopolitan in equal measures. Christian, Sunni and Shia Muslim villages sit cheek by jowl.
As The Telegraph drives there, Israeli jets and drones are hunting Hezbollah positions in the hills to the west after the militants let rip one of their long-range ground-to-ground missiles towards “the entity” the previous night.
These missiles are large and said to be launched from adapted shipping containers carried by articulated trucks, which makes the drive there hazardous.
But the threat that brought the Christians of Ras Baalbek and Hezbollah close came from the east. The village sits at the foothills of the arid Qalamoun mountains, over which you can trek just a few kilometres into Syria.
It was from there, between 2013 and 2017 during the height of the Syrian civil war, that Islamic State (IS) fighters launched several assaults on the village, threatening to wipe it from the map and behead its Catholic residents.
“The first attack came from a village called Qasr, just seven kilometres from here in Syria. IS came over the hills and reached the edge of the village and kidnapped some of my workers and tortured them,” he said.
“At first, it was only Hezbollah and the villagers who fought back against the Salafists. We fought together with missiles and rockets. Many were wounded and some died. I was almost killed with shrapnel in my back from a mortar.”
Mr Nasrallah did not say so, but the bond between the villagers and Hezbollah, is a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – or that’s how it started.
During the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters in support of the Iranian-backed Assad regime. Their adversaries included jihadist organisations such as Isis and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.
When IS first struck on Lebanese soil in 2013, the group was quick to the defence of the villagers, unlike the Lebanese army, which only became involved later.
“The army was weak. The leader of the army at the time was not strong. He did not have the political support for the fight. Only later in 2015 and 2017 did they help,” said Mr Nasrallah.
One of the two Lebanese soldiers said: “I lost five friends. One Humvee we were following was blown up by a mine. Three colleagues died in that. We had good-quality soldiers but, at first, we lacked logistics and equipment.”
In 2017, the Lebanese army did see IS off, and is credited for doing so in much of Lebanon. The Dawn of the Jurds (hills) anti-terror operation was documented in official dispatches at the time.
“The army liberated today around 30 square kilometres, making the total liberated space since the beginning… now around 80 square kilometres out of 120 square kilometres,” said an official army memo dated Aug 20 2017.
It added: “During the military operations, three soldiers fell and a fourth was severely injured as a result of the explosion of a landmine that hit a military vehicle. Moreover, two other soldiers were slightly injured during the clashes while the operations resulted in the death of 15 terrorists and the destruction of 12 posts containing caves, tunnels, communication paths, fortifications and different weapons.”
Today in Lebanon there are again widespread fears, so far unsubstantiated, that Syria will become involved in the war. Hezbollah suspects that the Israelis are making use of Syrian airspace to launch commando attacks on places like Nabi Sheet, which was attacked two weeks ago. And the Christians of Ras Baalbek are worried about renewed attacks from Syrian Salafist groups like IS.
“His history speaks for itself”, said Mr Nasrallah of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, the new Syrian president, who once led the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate that fought against Hezbollah in Syria. “We have a saying, ‘You cannot change a wild animal. He is what he is’. And he is at our border.”
There is no evidence that al-Sharaa has any plans to attack Lebanon, let alone Christian villages. Most analysts say he has enough on his plate stabilising Syria, and on Friday the IDF announced it was again bombing areas in the As-Suwayda area of Syria’s south in defence of Druze communities there.
Nevertheless, fears persist, binding the Christians of Ras Baalbek and Hezbollah ever closer together. So much so that Mr Nasrallah said that “Israel is our first enemy... Hezbollah is our friend”.
He and a Shia refugee from a Hezbollah village further down the valley recounted the many thousands of Israeli air strikes that occurred during the 13 months of the last ceasefire, which ended when the Iran war started.
The period, said the refugee, Ahmad, 30, was the “cruellest” part of the war. “There were violations every day. Bombs in the front of our houses. Drones always overhead. There were mothers that saw their children killed in front of them and children who saw their parents killed.
“There were cases where the Israelis would call and say, ‘do you want to die with your family or die alone?’. They would then walk out and be killed in front of their children. How much courage does that take? And how much cruelty?”
Israel said all its air strikes during the ceasefire were in response to Hezbollah violations.
But the toll was significant. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon recorded more than 10,000 ceasefire violations over the period, including air and ground incursions. The Lebanese authorities reported 331 deaths and 945 injuries in the first 12 months alone.
This has left many, like Ahmad, traumatised. And like Mr Nasrallah, they are reaching for conspiracy theories to explain things –some ancient, some much more modern.
“We are at war with the Epstein people. The people eating, frying and raping kids. They are monsters, beasts. They are not humans. But the worst part is they are the ones that rule the world,” said Ahmad.
Does Mr Nasrallah worry that Christian Ras Baalbek’s relationship with Hezbollah may now place the village in peril as Israel and the Lebanese army seek to disarm the militant group? His answer was an emphatic “no”.
“How can we as Christians in this area not be with Hezbollah?,” he said. “They protect our churches. They helped us fight Isis. During Covid they gave us free care in their hospitals. When there was no electricity they gave us generators. They even put up a Christmas tree at Christmas. How can we not be with them now?”
