Lebanon serves as Israel's battleground and trap

By Jack Redden

BRAASHEET, Lebanon (Reuters): Every few days Hizbollah guerrillas slip between the scarred concrete houses on the edge of the village and, hidden from above, lob mortar rounds into a hilltop fortress.

The rugged terrain, typical of south Lebanon, leaves the Israeli-paid militiamen of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) firing back blindly, inflicting more damage on the abandoned buildings but rarely hitting a guerrilla.

"They are absolutely protected from direct fire weapons in these areas," said a UN peacekeeper patrolling the nearby road on this last active Arab-Israeli conflict. "The only thing that can get them is something coming back the same way."

Hizbollah guerrillas had last fired from the position at the base of the hill the previous day. A rusted gate and barbed wire blocked the disused -- and mined -- road winding up the side.

The deeply eroded hills that have long provided cover for those fighting Israel are an extension of the Galilee, the biblical hills south of the border in what became the Jewish state in 1948.

Palestinians poured north during the fighting that created Israel, expecting to return soon. But Israel barred them and sealed the border, leaving a registered refugee population in Lebanon that now numbers 360,000.

That festering international problem only gradually created problems for those in south Lebanon, a mix of Muslim Shi'ites, Muslim Sunnis, Christians and Druze. That changed after civil war broke out in Beirut in 1975, with the well-armed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on one side and Israeli-backed Christian forces on the other.

Fighting spread and by 1976 south Lebanon was "Fatahland", named after Yasser Arafat's dominant PLO faction. Lebanese there found their lives run by Palestinian guerrillas whose priority was retaking their homeland.

"We sheltered the Palestinians when they first came," said a resident of a village near one of the three Palestinian refugee camps still in the area. "But then they took control; they stabbed us in the back."

The Palestinians harassed the Israelis over the border, drawing a 1978 invasion that swept 40 km (25 miles) north into Lebanon. That transformed Lebanon -- creating a massive dislocation of civilians into Beirut that fed future conflict and started Israel's 22-year presence in south Lebanon.

While it inflicted huge suffering on the population, it did not change the conflict. Israeli attempts to hit Palestinian guerrillas were no more successful than they have been against the Lebanese Hizbollah.

Israel tried again in 1982, this time with an invasion that swept all the way to Beirut and forced PLO forces to leave Lebanon by sea.

After the years of PLO control -- Lebanese still fume about being stopped by Palestinians and ordered to show their identity papers -- the Israelis did not find a hostile local population in south Lebanon. At first.

But heavy-handed Israeli army control soon alienated many Lebanese, especially the majority Shi'ites. By 1984 Shi'ites, with aid and training from Iran, had formed Hizbollah.

Relentless attacks, including suicide bombers that Israel had never before faced, forced a steady retreat from Beirut. In 1985 Israel settled on the lines of their current "security zone" and the struggle the world is still witnessing began.

Now Israelis and their SLA allies are barricaded atop hills while Hizbollah guerrillas move undetected along the wadis, the dry river valleys criss-crossing the region, seemingly striking with impunity.

"It's always difficult for any occupying force to dominate completely," said Commandant Tony Keily of the Irish contingent of the UN peacekeeping force that has been trying to secure Israel's withdrawal since 1978.

"The Israeli presence is static and it is not of major benefit to them," he said at his base in the village of Tibnine. "They could make the same observations from inside Israel."

Israel agrees. Twenty-two years after entering to fight Palestinians, it is being driven out by Lebanese guerrillas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has set a July deadline for withdrawal.

The Lebanese and Syrian governments have warned Israel it will not have peace until it also returns Syria's Golan Heights and addresses the Palestinian demand to return home. But most in south Lebanon would like to see a return to normality.

"There are adults who have never known peace, never mind the children," said Keily. "It would be great to see them having a normal life."

A report by the United Nations and Lebanon last year said a third of the registered population in areas beside the Israeli zone are not there -- and 78 percent of those inside the area are gone.

An economic revival will be needed to draw people back after peace, with the report advocating tourism. Nothing could be a greater monument to recovery than making Beaufort Castle a tourist attraction.

A quarter century ago the Crusader castle atop a cliff towering over the Litani River was a stronghold for Palestinian guerrillas, who sheltered deep inside the stone walls during Israel's frequent attacks.

Israel took it in bloody hand-to-hand fighting at the start of its 1982 invasion and never relinquished it. But last month Hizbollah guerrillas slipped within range of the fortress, inflicting another of the deaths that caused Israel to conclude it could never control south Lebanon.