Better late than never: village takes joy in end of occupation

   
When Sraireh Mukhtar Salim Kiwan locked the swing gate behind him and returned the key to the SLA* militiaman in the adjacent Kfar Houna outpost last Wednesday, he little imagined that it would be the last time he would ever have to perform the onerous chore.
The next morning, residents of the Jezzine village arrived at the gate to discover the outpost in ruins and the SLA gone. “It was as if we’d been in jail and now we’re free,” said Kiwan.
Sraireh, the only Druze village in the district, is tucked among the eastern folds of Jabal Abu Rashed, 13 kilometers southeast of Jezzine.
For over 19 years, the village remained largely forgotten as the 100-odd residents, most of them members of the Kiwan clan, quietly tended their olive groves, ignoring the battles between the resistance and the occupation forces among the surrounding craggy hills and wadis.
The roads running north into the western Beqaa and east toward Hasbaya have remained blocked by earthen embankments and land mines since 1985. The village’s only lifeline to the outside world was via a narrow, crumbling road that terminated at a swing gate beside the Kfar Houna position, overlooking the main route between Jezzine and Marjeyoun.
For the residents of Sraireh, the simple red- and white-painted gate became their greatest source of irritation and a symbol of the strictures imposed by the occupation. “It was our main problem,” said Kiwan. “Every time we wanted to leave the village we had to go up and fetch the key from the militiamen in the outpost, unlock the gate, drive the car through, lock the gate and return the key.”
The SLA’s decision to abandon the Kfar Houna outpost and redeploy to Aramta, 4 kilometers to the south, came as a complete surprise to the residents of Sraireh. The move also freed the nearby hamlet of Qotrani, a tiny cluster of single-story stone buildings.
“When we saw the militia had left, we smashed the lock and jammed the gate open,” said Kiwan.
It is perhaps illustrative of Sraireh’s seclusion that the most irksome element of occupation for the residents was the hassle of having to open and close a gate. Nearby villages in Iqleem al-Toffah and the western Beqaa suffer regular infrastructure damage and the occasional loss of life from the daily bouts of violence. But other than damage to two houses from a mortar shell in 1994, Sraireh has emerged from the occupation remarkably unscathed.
“Our village was stuck in the middle of the fighting. The shells always flew over our heads in both directions,” said Khalil Kiwan, the village’s school teacher.

"The SLA once manned a position in an old quarry at the entrance of the village, but the post was abandoned in 1987, after which the occupation forces were rarely seen
“We never saw them here. They were too scared to come as we are far from the safety of their positions,” said resident Wael Kiwan.
Sraireh’s location at the hub of routes between the western Beqaa, Hasbaya and Jezzine once helped it attract dozens of students from neighboring villages. Today, although the village school can seat 500 pupils, only one student attends class, 6-year-old Maher Kiwan.
Khalil Kiwan said construction on the present school finished in 1995 in anticipation of the occupation ending and the school filling with pupils.
Asked if he missed having friends at the school, Maher gave a doleful nod of the head and continued scribbling his lessons on the chalk board.

1- The Daily Star, 20-1-2000.
* It is an "Israeli" nomination we absolutely reject for it contradicts with Lebanon's independence and sovereignty. This army is not but an "Israeli" agent working for realizing "Israel's" goals in Lebanon.