In south Lebanon town, border conflict brings fear and resignation
World
In south Lebanon town, border conflict brings fear and resignation
QANA, Lebanon (Reuters) - In the south Lebanon town of Qana, where Israeli shelling killed more than 100 people in 1996 and some 28 died in an Israeli airstrike in 2006, escalating border clashes fill residents with fear of a new war and resignation they can't escape if it comes.
People from the town, also known as Cana, which claims to be where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine, have grown used to be being caught in the crossfire of conflicts between Israel and the heavily armed group Hezbollah.
"The war is being waged at the border. Maybe its not our turn yet but you don’t know what will happen in a few days. You just wait," said Rabab Yousef, a 57-year-old mother who lost a daughter under the rubble of an Israeli airstrike in 2006.
"Every once in a while they create a war and one loses a family member. You give birth to a child and you don’t know whether this child will stay with you," she said.
When conflict erupted over Gaza after Palestinian group Hamas - an ally of Hezbollah - launched its devastating raid on Israeli soil on Oct. 7, violence quickly flared on Israel's flashpoint northern border with Lebanon.
Since then, Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim group that is the most powerful of Iran's regional allies in Tehran's "Axis of Resistance", has been involved in increasingly heavy exchanges of fire with Israel's military. More than 40 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the borderlands so far, while Israel's military says at least seven soldiers have been killed.
