Crimes and Illusions

How easy it is to make a spectacle to raise morale. Here they go again, the Israeli Special Forces make a heroic mission in the heart of the Bekaa, in the city that saw the birth of the Hezbollah in 1982, the city of the sun: Baalbek. A great spectacle with videos from the air, satellites and computer-game-like graphics shows a successful operation that saw the ‘killing of at least 10 Hezbollah fighters and the kidnapping of 5 of their leaderships’. Amazing what media and politicians can do.

Reality however is far different: 18 were killed in Baalbek yesterday, they were not Hezbollah however, they were not even fighters, they were simple families and here is the list of names and ages:

- Talal Chibli (male 40) his wife Maha Chaaban El Issa (35), their kids: Mohamad (3) Asma (5) Mohannad (13) Mo’ayed (15) and Mos’ab (17)

- Maxim Jamal Eddine (17), Malek Jamal Eddine (28), Awad Kassem Jamal Eddine (56), his son Hassan

- Naji Mohssen Jamal Eddine (45) his son Mohammad (13), their neighbor Hussein Youssef Mokdad

- Nisrine Salloum (female, she was pregnant)

- The emergency crew at the hospital where the operation was carried: Atef Amhaz, Wissam Yaghi, Rida Medlej.

As for the 5 kidnapped, an ironic factor is that one of them is called Hassan Nasrallah the same name as the secretary general of the Hezbollah, however the difference is that this Nasrallah is the owner of a small shop. The 5 were Hassan and his son Bilal, their son in law Hassan Berji, Mohammad Chokor (a car technician) and the owner of their house Ahmad Outa. The people who know them claim that these people are in fact in the Communist party, and most of them (4 out of 5) are more than 50 years old, so logically not fighters.

It is easy to create victories when one shows videos and narrate them. Another crime and so many other families massacred. The score of civilians killed in 21 days is now exceeding 950. Again I ask who is the terrorist?