In Lebanon's South, Your Nearest Neighbor is a Jew Trying to Kill you

Salim’s baby has just turned one, but he can count the few times he has seen her in the last year.

Instead of raising his daughter, the former history teacher has become a full-time resistance fighter, tasked with protecting the now-deserted homes in his southern Lebanese village against Israeli attacks.

The 36-year-old lives in [name withheld], just 50 metres from the Israeli settlements on the other side of the border. [Ever wondered why Lebanese and Palestinian places are called villages, while Zionist places are outposts or settlements?]. The simple village life on the border with Israel has been transformed into a base for resistance fighters.

Amid the heaviest bombardment since the second Lebanon war, more than 5,000 projectiles have been fired by Israel on Lebanese villages since October 7.

The beautiful tree-lined roads up the mountainside have been turned into muddy tracks by the rain, with UN and Lebanese Army soldiers now patrolling where children once played freely in the 750-strong village.

“I miss my children, my wife, the life we lived, the simplicity,” he said, his eldest of two just three years old. “I want to be part of raising my daughter but instead, I’m here, safeguarding what’s left of our village” he said.

More than 100,000 Lebanese have been displaced from the country’s southern border, fleeing daily barrages of Israeli fire. Last week, 100 rockets came from Israel in a single day.

“We sleep with one eye open, it’s not a normal life,” he said.

‘When it rains, we keep a finger on the trigger’

“Sleeping with hand grenades and rockets, it’s not the life any of us wanted. When the rain comes, we have a finger on the trigger as we know that’s when they’d strike because we can’t see or hear anything.”

Located metres from the border, the village has been the hardest hit in the southern region. But deep roots and a long history is their guide: All his neighbors are expected to return, but not before the Israeli violence - now in its sixth decade - ends for good. Fears linger from the repeated invasions and atrocities committed by the Jewish terror militia of the Zionists over the past six decades.

No one can predict the future, but Salim talks of "precedents": Lebanon's long history is replete with  invasions by foreign armies, from the Babylonians and Assyrians, to the Persians, Greeks and Romans, to the conquering Byzantines, Arabs and European Crusaders, the Ayoubids of Saladin, the Mamluks and Turkish Ottomans, the French and the British, and now the European Jewish occupation. "Like all these people before them, the Zionist Jews will one day return to their European homelands; it's the inevitability of history", he adds with a smile.

"The Christian Crusaders lasted some 200 years, maybe 300 if you count Cyprus, their last refuge. How long will these Eastern European Jews last is anyone's guess, but the cracks in the wall have already appeared. They talk about their "Samson Option" as if it is some sort of cure-all, but what the heck? They already committed suicide by deciding to implant themselves in our lands here. Beyond more massive American aid, I do sincerely wish them luck".