When it all came to an end
Nicholas Blanford recalls the liberation of Houla and the death of the occupation

It was still dark as the exiled residents of the occupied village of Houla began gathering on the outskirts of Shaqra on the edge of the occupation zone. The residents had alerted each other by telephone, passing on the message that Houla was going to be liberated in the morning.
Hizbullah had seen the astonishing result of the sudden return of villagers to Qantara and Taibe the day before, and encouraged Houla’s former residents to do the same.
Targeting Houla for liberation was an astute move. The only main road running up the central sector of the zone ­ connecting the “Israeli”-proxy SLA’s Marjayoun headquarters with Bint Jbeil ­ passed through Houla and also skirted the border with “Israel”. If the civilians could reach the village they would control the main road and reach the border. The occupation zone would be cut in two.
Liberating Houla through mass civil action, however, was a risky affair.
The South Lebanon Army had already abandoned Qantara and the surrounding villages when the residents streamed back to their homes the day before. But Houla was still occupied. The people gathered in Shaqra could see the lights of SLA outposts in Houla twinkling in the darkness on the other side of Wadi Salouqi.
The strategic implications and risks of entering Houla were not lost on the residents. But many of them had not set foot in the village for 15 years and needed little encouragement from Hizbullah to return to their homes.
“The resistance contacted a few people and we spread the word,” said Abbas al-Hajj, 30, an accountant who lived in Beirut. “We began gathering at 1.30am in Shaqra. We were absolutely determined to enter Houla and we stood shoulder to shoulder.”
Jawad Sleiman, 70, who had remained in Houla throughout the occupation, sensed that the village’s liberation was at hand.
“I had an intuition that the people would come,” he said. “I saw what had happened to Qantara and Taibe and guessed something might happen. I also expected it because the militiamen had packed their bags.”
By dawn, the militiamen were abandoning their positions around Houla. In Shaqra, some 700 people had gathered beside a gate leading to an old road that wound through Wadi Salouqi to Houla. No vehicle had driven down that road since 1985. Irish UNIFIL troops blocked access, warning of the dangers of passing through the frontline Wadi Salouqi.
Then the “Israelis” began shelling Wadi Salouqi to deter the residents from crossing.
“We negotiated with the Irish to let us in but they refused to open the gate,” said al-Hajj. “At 9am, the Hizbullah people said ‘Enough. We’re going in, we’re not going to wait any longer.’ There was nothing the Irish could do. We opened the gate and began driving down the road. The road was in very bad condition with big rocks blocking the way. It was very dangerous. The “Israelis” were shelling the sides of the wadi.”
The “Israelis” staged a last attempt to block the civilian advance into Houla when an “Israeli” warplane fired a missile at the road on the western outskirts of the village.
“It exploded right in front of my car. It blasted a big hole in the road,” al-Hajj said.
But the missile was slightly off target. Two-thirds of the road had disappeared but the civilian vehicles could still skirt the gaping crater.
“People from Houla ran down the road to meet us,” al-Hajj said. “It was a meeting of pure joy. There were tears of joy. It was like being born again.”
Tearful elderly women tossed handfuls of rice in greeting and sobbed “Allahu Akbar” as hundreds of vehicles jammed the approach to the village. Each car was packed with people, leaning out of the windows, cheering and waving Hizbullah and Amal flags.
Hizbullah fighters, clutching automatic weapons, mingled with the crowd. Pistol shots rang out as a suspected collaborator was grabbed and hurled into the back of a car.
Sporadic machine-gun fire broke out in Markaba, Houla’s neighboring village, 3 kilometers to the north. The SLA militiamen could see what had happened to Houla and feared they would be next. They fled the village and regrouped on the edge of Addaisseh, 3 kilometers further north.
Meanwhile, Marjayoun/Hasbaya MP Nazi Mansour, a member of Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc who had been at the forefront of the liberation of Qantara and his hometown of Taibe a day earlier, had chosen a more unorthodox route into the occupation zone.
“I walked from Majdal Silm (3 kilometers north of Shaqra) across Wadi Salouqi to Talloussa,” Mansour said. “There was no road through the wadi at this point. It took us 40 minutes to cross. It was hard work.”
And dangerous, too. Wadi Salouqi was the scene of close-quarter gun battles between the resistance and “Israeli” troops. The slopes and floor of the wadi were laced with land mines, booby-trapped explosive devices, and unexploded ordinance.
“We were seven people at first. Then people in Majdal Silm saw that I was among them and said ‘If he’s not afraid to go through the wadi, then neither are we.’ Around 100 of us ended up going to Talloussa. We reached Talloussa in safety. I think God was protecting us that day.”
By now the “Israelis” had grown seriously alarmed at the pace of events. To prevent the civilian advance from reaching Addaisseh and villages south of Houla, helicopter gunships appeared in the sky and tanks sidled into position beside the Sheikh Abbad and Misgav Am compounds. At least five civilians died that day with another 21 wounded as “Israel” attempted to check the collapse of the occupation zone.
Hizbullah fighters looted the SLA’s Markaba outpost, emerging from the concrete bunkers swathed in bandoleers of ammunition, carrying heavy machine guns, grenades and military clothing. The fighters stood at the border fence beside the road between Houla and Markaba, their party flags snapping in the stiff breeze, and gazed at the toy-like houses in the “Israeli” settlement of Margaliot lying on the hillside below. Beyond Margaliot, the neat fields, woods and roads of northern Galilee spread out like a map, ending far to the east with the gently rising slopes of the Golan Heights.
“This is Palestine,” said a Hizbullah fighter to his wide-eyed comrade, gesturing with an expansive sweep of the arm.
The zone was cut in two. Within hours, panicked SLA militiamen in the western sector abandoned their positions and fled toward the “Israeli” border. Dozens of militiamen headed in the opposite direction, surrendering to the Lebanese authorities.
The following morning, the entire western and central sectors had collapsed, with civilians pouring into the liberated areas. Twenty-four hours later, “Israel”’s 22-year occupation was over as the last “Israeli” troops dashed for the border.
Of all the mooted scenarios offered for the final stage of “Israel”’s troop withdrawal from south Lebanon, no one predicted that it would end simply with a group of exiled villagers determined to go home. “Israel” was forced to pull its troops out earlier than scheduled ­ and Hizbullah was prevented from staging a planned final offensive.
“Hizbullah had plans for the withdrawal and we were almost ready,” Mansour said. “But no one expected it to end like this. The popular movement changed all our programs.”

1-      The Daily Star, 22-5-2001.