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Rising Discontent Within Hezbollah’s Support Base over Delayed War Compensation

A girl reacts near a poster of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, at the site damaged by an Israeli airstrike that killed the Hezbollah leader, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A girl reacts near a poster of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, at the site damaged by an Israeli airstrike that killed the Hezbollah leader, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Rising Discontent Within Hezbollah’s Support Base over Delayed War Compensation

A girl reacts near a poster of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, at the site damaged by an Israeli airstrike that killed the Hezbollah leader, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A girl reacts near a poster of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, at the site damaged by an Israeli airstrike that killed the Hezbollah leader, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon December 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Hezbollah has been eager to assure its popular base that it would pay compensation fees for the losses incurred by the war with Israel, but delays in payments and a climate of favoritism has gradually begun to spread among its supporters.
Although some of the party’s inner circle are keen to avoid criticism in public, others have openly expressed resentment on social media pertaining to the way compensation is being distributed compared to the losses suffered by the people of the South, the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
That, however, has pushed Hezbollah’s leadership to issue a statement on Monday that compensation for restoration and reconstruction continues based on some technical and logistical details it is working with.
Since a ceasefire went into effect on November 27, Hezbollah Secretary-General, Naeem Qassem, had declared the party’s commitment to providing housing allowances for a period of one year for those whose homes were destroyed. At the same time, the party shifted the responsibility for reconstruction compensation to the Lebanese government.
Housing Allowances and Compensations Ruled by Partiality
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, S.Abdullah, who now lives in a rented house in Beirut, said he has not received “a single dollar” from Hezbollah so far in compensation for his destroyed house in Khiam and another one largely devastated in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Speaking of favoritism he said: “Only party members are receiving the funds and anyone not affiliated with Hezbollah is being ignored, with no benefit from applying on this platform or that”, noting that his parents, brother and sister have also been ignored any compensation so far.
“We are managing our rental payments. But it is unacceptable that we be dragged into war and then promised compensation, only to see that favoritism rules...There are no longer any leaders in the party. Chaos controls the management of affairs, where money is being embezzled”.
Abdullah affirms that his words reflect the sentiments of most of the people in his town and the neighboring villages, “even though some do not dare to speak openly about this issue.
“Clearly the next phase will not be like before regarding Hezbollah’s popular base. Many things have changed and those will show in the future”, Abdullah concluded.
Conditions to Repair Homes before Payments Pose Burden on Low-income Homeowners
Moreover, requirements posed by Hezbollah that houses destroyed or damaged by war be repaired first by homeowners in order to receive compensation has become a burden for many low-income individuals who have no savings.
“My husband’s income is no more than 400 dollars. How can that be enough for us to eat, pay expenses, school tuition fees for my daughter and son, and also pay for the reconstruction”, one woman told the daily.
Another woman, Samia, whose house in south Lebanon was destroyed, said the housing allowance she receives from the party is insufficient to rent a home due to the rise in rental prices.
“I used to pay $300 for rent before the war. Today rent is between $600 and $700, if a house is even available”, she told the daily.
Samia however rejected accusations of betrayal made by some of Hezbollah’s popular base against those expressing concerns. “They shouldn't lecture us, as we have always supported the cause, but it is also our right to express our suffering”, she exclaimed.

Hezbollah: Follow-up Ongoing in Restoration and Reconstruction File 

Hezbollah said in a statement on Monday that it “continues to follow up on the file of restoration and reconstruction”, noting “three categories of files being worked on: the file of total demolitions, the file of buildings that require structural inspection, and the file of restoration”.

“Work is currently underway to expand the automation team to complete as many application forms as possible” added the statement, “we are trying to finalize all files in a short time”.
 

 

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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

A Syrian family that survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near the country’s capital, Damascus, says the ordeal they experienced haunts them to this day.

The Aug. 21, 2013 attack targeted several Damascus suburbs, including Zamalka, where the Arbeeni family lives. Government forces of then-President Bashar Assad were blamed for the attack.

The Arbeenis remember how they locked themselves inside a windowless room in their home for hours, escaping the fate of dozens of their neighbors who perished in what was one of the deadliest moments of Syria’s civil war.

The gas that was used — sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent — can kill in minutes.

The Syrian government denied it was behind the attack and blamed opposition fighters, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be Washington’s “red line.”

“It was a horrifying night,” Hussein Arbeeni, 41, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The surface-to-surface missiles fell close to his family’s home without exploding, instead leaking the poisonous gas. Shortly after that, he says the family members had difficulties breathing, their eyes started to ache and their hearts beat faster and faster.

Hassan Arbeeni, 42, shows a crater where a surface-to-surface missile loaded with sarin struck, during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

Arbeeni, his parents, his siblings and their families, as well as a neighbor — 23 people in all — rushed into the only room in their home without windows and closed the door.

He says he taped all around the door, soaked some clothes in water and rolled them up under the door to prevent the gas from coming in. “I even taped the keyhole,” he said.

A few months earlier, Arbeeni said, the local first responders of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, had instructed residents in the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus what to do in case of a chemical attack.

He remembers them saying they should cover their nose and mouth with a cloth soaked in water with white vinegar, and breathe through that.

They huddled for three hours inside the room — time that seemed endless that night. Outside, many people were dying.

“It is all because of God and this locked room,” Arbeeni says of their survival.

Around daybreak, the White Helmets members rushed into their house, found the family inside the room on the ground floor and told them to leave the area immediately.

They ran into the street and saw dead bodies lying all around. A passing truck took the family on and gave them a ride. Their neighbor, who had fainted from the shock of the horrific scene, was taken away by paramedics.

“I was scared to look,” said Arbeeni’s mother, Khadija Dabbas, 66.

The family stayed for a few weeks some miles away from Zamalka but then came back.

Despite Obama's threat, in the end, Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Russia-backed Assad to give up his chemical weapons’ stockpile.

But Assad's government was widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again — including a 2018 chlorine gas attack over Douma, another Damascus suburb, that killed 43 people.

Today, Arbeeni — remembering all the neighbors, friends and townspeople who perished — says he wants the “harshest punishment” for those behind the attack in Zamalka.

“All those children and innocent people who were killed should get justice,” he said, looking at his 12-year-old son, Laith, a baby at the time of the attack.

An aerial view shows a mass grave where are buried those who were killed by the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

The new authorities in Syria are led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, which late last month launched a stunning offensive from its northwestern stronghold that blitzed across large swaths of Syria and toppled Assad. They have vowed to bring to justice former Syrian government officials blamed for atrocities.

But times are still unsettled — a few short weeks after Assad's ouster, no one knows what Syria's future will look like.

“The overthrow of the Assad government creates the possibility of justice for thousands of victims of atrocities, including those killed by chemical and other banned weapons,” says Adam Coogle, deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

“But justice will only happen if the new authorities prioritize it and urgently act to preserve evidence,” Coogle added. He urged for immediate access for UN agencies and international experts who would create a comprehensive plan to ensure that Syrians can seek justice and accountability.

On Wednesday, about a dozen people visited the Martyrs Cemetery in Zamalka and the graves of people from the area killed during Syria's nearly 14-year war.

Arbeeni's brother, Hassan, pointed to part of the cemetery that holds a mass grave. There are no names of the dead there, only a sign in Arabic that reads: “August 2013.”

“The martyrs of the chemical attack are here,” Hassan said, and recited a Muslim prayer for the dead.