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Once denied by its leaders, the Shia militant group's involvement in Syria is now a badge of honour for families burying their dead
Martin Chulov in Beirut
The Guardian, Friday 24 May 2013 18.51 BST
Hezbollah members carry the coffin of their comrade Fadi Mohammed al-Jazzar during his funeral in southern Beirut. Photograph: Str/AFP/Getty Images
The workmen had been busy in the room where Hezbollah honours its dead. In one corner of the martyrs' cemetery in south Beirut, four women shrouded in black sat cross-legged near a new grave, reading from the Qu'ran. Metres away, the yellow flag of the militant group covered a freshly covered hole in a white marble floor. The scent of burning incense wafted across the room.
Another grave, its concrete seal barely dry, had been partly completed nearby. There were seven fresh holes in all; and the grave digger was never far away. More bodies were due on Friday. At this rate, the tiny room – a shrine to Hezbollah's cause as much as to the men who died fighting for it – would soon be full.
The flurry of activity in the martyrs' cemetery marks the busiest period for the militant movement since the 2006 war with Israel, in which an estimated 400 of its members died. All the new graves here have been dug in the past 10 days. Many others have been sealed with the familiar yellow and green standard in villages across Lebanon where the rumblings of a very different war have now boiled over into sacrifice and loss.
The newly arrived dead have ushered in a new reality for Hezbollah, one that has taken more than two years of uprising and war in neighbouring Syria to publicly acknowledge: all the fallen have died fighting Arabs in Syria, not Jews in Israel. Such a shift in orientation, for so long denied by the group's leadership, is now being worn as a badge of honour by the families of the dead.
Many of the next of kin interviewed by the Guardian said that their sons and brothers had been defending Lebanon from foreign plotters – in this case Salafists from the east rather than Zionists from the south. "The threat to us comes from all directions," said one grieving relative in the Beirut suburb of Chiyah on Friday. "But behind it all is the hidden hand of Israel."
The relative had come to the martyrs' cemetery to bury Taalab Fadl, who had been killed fighting rebels in the Syrian town of Qusair.
Men in olive green rode motorbikes up and down nearby roads, all closed by steel barriers while the body was prepared for burial in an adjoining funeral hall. A truck stopped on a street corner, blaring martyrdom hymns throughout the cavernous lanes and alleys of the party's heartland.
A brass band prepared for the 2pm arrival. It had used the visit hours earlier of an Iranian delegation to prepare, warming up with stirring revolutionary ballads, more than the sorrowful tones often associated with loss.
The Iranians, around 70 men in two buses, had all made their way to the new graves, politely asking their guides where each had been killed. The officials spent more time in front of one grave at the centre of the room, that of the last Hezbollah member to die in Syria before the uprising, Imad Mughniyeh, the group's key strategist and military leader who was killed by Israeli assassins in Damascus in February 2008. Some bowed in deference, stooping to touch the tomb's marble cover. Others slowly toured the room acknowledging all of the dead, new and old.
Next to Mughniyeh was a new arrival, Rabiah al-Saadi, covered uncharacteristically in a red flag. And alongside him was Hadi, the son of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Hadi had been killed by Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon in 1997.
A middle-aged man crouched in front of the grave of his 17-year son who also died in battle that year. One hand held the corner of the tomb and he sobbed uncontrollably into the other. As he rose to leave, he said: "Grief is the price we pay for love."
In the clandestine world of Hezbollah there is something revelatory about its graveyards; its members live with their secrets, but die stripped bare of them. As the tally of dead and injured has mounted over the past week, a clearer picture has emerged of the depth of the group's involvement in Syria, a battle that Nasrallah had long denied joining.
The impact of such a shift is resounding across Lebanon and beyond. Sectarian tensions, which have bubbled away as the crisis has worn on, are now more visible and potent than for many decades. "God help us," said one refugee from Qusair this week – a Sunni mother of three. "People say they are afraid of a world war. We want a world war rather than this. Either they let us die, or live with dignity."
In a series of speeches over the past two years, Nasrallah, who is rarely seen in public, has voiced unwavering support for Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been essential to the group's power. But he has dismissed constant opposition claims that he was more than just a moral backer. In the past eight months, however, Hezbollah's leader has shifted tone, suggesting first that members were "not yet" involved in Syria, then highlighting the threat posed to Shia shrines there, particularly the Sayyida Zeinab mosque in Damascus, as a reason to consider stepping in.
This year, Hezbollah's television station, al-Manar, started playing a short video showing fighters near the Zeinab mosque – a tacit acknowledgement of the group's direct military support. Facebook posts about slain members appeared soon after. Then came tributes on Hezbollah channels and websites, all without details.
Its hand perhaps forced by the sheer volume of dead and wounded coming back from Qusair, the group has only this past week felt comfortable enough to drop the veil on its role in Syria. But even now, the graveyard clamour and pageantry of martyrdom has not led Hezbollah's leaders to address their direct involvement – a move that has profound implications both in Lebanon and across the region.
So far, justification is being left to the group's support base, much of which seems to be onside with the decision, citing a need to strike pre-emptively against rebel groups that they believe will come to fight them next.
"I am with Hezbollah in this decision, because it is better that we fight them there than here," said a Dahiyah resident, Mohammed Abdullah.
"People don't think critically. If Hezbollah want to do this, then that's OK. They believe that Hezbollah know what they are doing."
Another Dahiyah local echoed a sentiment widely heard among Hezbollah supporters – that Syria's opposition is al-Qaida-led and heading for Lebanon. "They are terrorists who pretend they are Muslims," said Zulfiqa Hamsa, 23. They want to take the weapons from Hezbollah and indirectly support the Zionists and the Jews.
"They have been afraid until now to say that Hezbollah have been involved in fighting in other countries because of international opinion."
Other supporters are equally comfortable with the shift in the group's raison d'etre. "Of course it's a big decision," said vendor Ala'a Attrass. "But it's necessary. You think there isn't sectarianism in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia? They are persecuting Shias there."
Lebanon's civilian leaders have largely remained mute over this week's events. By Friday, at least 30 Hezbollah members had returned in death shrouds. Many dozens more were injured. Its supporters estimated that the toll was much higher, with some well connected sources saying that a Syrian jet had mistakenly bombed a large group of Hezbollah members, killing up to 20 on Tuesday.
In the northern city of Baalbek – a strategic hub for Hezbollah, only 15 miles south of the frontline in Qusair – recent refugees were taking shelter from the war. Nearby, another of the group's main zones, Hermel, where its founding parade was held in 1982 and the group was mandated by Iran to fight Israel, was further down the path of conditioning its supporters to the change. Members here had begun erecting martyrs' posters to pay homage to the dead – something that is yet to be done in Beirut, where fading banners of the 2006 dead remain prominent.
On a visit to Baalbekon Thursday, Australia's foreign minister, Bob Carr, said the week's events had marked a groundshift in Syria's war. The deteriorating situation there, he said, "could become a sectarian civil war across the region. The prospect of it being a Shia, Sunni war across more than one country and this would be a huge tragedy.
"This is profoundly serious now. We could see the unravelling of nation states and the agreed boundaries that we have seen in the Middle East."
Back in Dahiyah, there was little reflection on the broader issues beyond an existential view of "us versus them", which has morphed into "we're better off getting them first".
"Fighting Israel has a different meaning and taste than fighting in Syria," said Mohammed Abdullah.
Asked which tastes better, he replied: "Israel, for sure."
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