Hezbollah Wants More Releases
If Israel wants peaceful relations with Lebanon, it must not only withdraw from the country's south but also release all Lebanese held in Israeli jails, the leader of the Hezbollah guerrillas said Saturday.
Israel must also pay compensation for the loss of life and damage that resulted from its occupation and settle the fate of 350,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a public speech.
Nasrallah's demands indicated that Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel's forces in south Lebanon since 1982, is unwilling to make peace once Israel pulls out in July as promised by Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Hezbollah has never stated clearly whether it will continue its campaign against Israel with cross-border attacks after Israeli troops leave the south. Israel has warned Lebanon of harsh retaliation if it comes under guerrilla attack after the pullout.
“The Israeli occupation of south Lebanon and the western Bekaa is just one of the problems,” Nasrallah said, addressing tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters in a southern suburb to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, a revered Shiite Muslim saint.
Men dressed in black beat their chests as an expression of sorrow and chador-clad women wailed. Hussein, the grandson of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, was killed by rival Muslim forces in the year 680 on the Karbala plain in modern-day Iraq.
Shiites elsewhere in Lebanon also marked the occasion, known as Ashoura.
Hours after the demonstration in Nabatiyeh, Israeli guns shelled the town's suburb of Kfar Roumman, wounding a 22-year-old man in the head and legs, Lebanese security officials said.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli military spokesman said Israeli and allied militia returned fire after attacks on several of their positions in southern Lebanon on Saturday. The spokesman declined to be named.
In his speech, Nasrallah also gave a warning to militiamen from the South Lebanon Army, which has helped Israel control the occupied zone. SLA members, seen as traitors, should retreat along with the Israeli soldiers, turn themselves in to the Lebanese judiciary, or “perish in fighters' bullets,” he said.
“If you don't leave with them (Israeli troops), we are coming for you, not for peace, but with rifles,” the black-turbaned Nasrallah vowed.
He called on Israel to release all Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails before withdrawing its troops, including Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, both senior officials affiliated with Lebanese guerrilla groups battling Israel.
Lebanon has refused to grant Israel security guarantees unless its withdrawal is part of a regional agreement involving Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.