“FOR ALL OF LEBANON”
L’Oeuvre d’Orient, the Catholic NGO, had been planning to head to the southern Christian villages of Debl, Rmeish and Ain Ebel, to inaugurate a sports zone with joint funding from the French UNIFIL battalion, to create an outlet for young people still living in the area, where it is forbidden to enter or leave without prior permission.
The convoy went back a few kilometres and waited for several hours near an Italian battalion base.
The organisation, which has made several trips to Lebanon’s few inhabited Christian southern towns over the past months to deliver aid, then informed journalists that Israel had refused to let them join.
A force from the French battalion went alone to inaugurate the centre.
Hugues de Woillemont, head of the organisation in France, expressed regret over not being able to go, as he wished to tell the villages “we did not forget them”.
Vincent Gelot, the organisation’s director in Lebanon, said that “without these villages, there would no longer be Lebanese in this part of Lebanon”, referring to the largely depopulated Shia-majority area.
“Their presence is therefore a presence for all of Lebanon, not just for the Christians.”
On Jun 18, the day after Tehran and Washington signed a memorandum of understanding that included a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel’s military published a map of what it called a “security zone”.
It is an area stretching around 10 kilometres inside Lebanese territory where Israeli troops are operating, and includes dozens of towns and villages, including Naqura, home to the UNIFIL headquarters.
In late June, Lebanon and Israel reached a framework agreement in Washington under which the Israeli military is to withdraw from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army is to deploy, beginning with two “pilot zones”, with Washington announcing the start of its implementation on Monday.
Despite the deal, Israeli officials have repeatedly said their forces will not leave Lebanon before Hezbollah is disarmed, a condition experts doubt Beirut can meet.
Returning from Ain Ebel, Colonel Maxime Laudet, from the French battalion, told AFP that the remaining residents just want “to live”.