Don't the Lebanese have any right to defend their lives against attack?

[bigtree]

To Many in a Town Under Attack, Militiamen Are Defenders

Published: August 3, 2006

KAFR KILA, Lebanon, Aug. 2 —

“How could you stay silent when you see your land burn and your children get killed?” said Mr. Yahia, who said he was a platoon commander with the local (Amal) defense force. “The whole population here is resisting.”


Despite the fighting and shelling, and the repeated warnings that Israeli troops and armor were gathering for a concerted push in this area, some residents have stayed: perhaps a hundred noncombatants are left, maybe a few more. Some who lived on the outer edge of town have moved to houses closer to the center. “We hear the bombs, and we know they keep falling here, and here, and here,” said Leila Hussein Chit, a widow who has moved her five children to her sister’s home in the center of town. She says she cannot leave, even to a neighboring village: “It’s a close hop, but we still can’t hop it.”

Jawad Fares, 70, a wiry farmer, said the Israeli infantry and Hezbollah guerrillas had battled near his house, at the town’s northern edge. While he spoke, artillery shells kept pounding at the ridge above.

“They were so close that if I had a gun, I could have shot at them,” he said. He said the Israeli artillery was firing phosphorus shells at the town’s groves and orchards to burn the hill and force people out. He said he had decided to stay because he owned a water pump and did not want to leave his neighbors without water.

“They are burning our crops and our trees to turn us into refugees,” he said. “They want to do with us what they did with Palestinians in 1948.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/world/middleeast/03village.html?pagewanted=print