The massive turnout welcomed fighters who were part of an armed resistance to the occupation, organized by Hezbollah. As they rode in a convoy of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and trucks captured from the fleeing SLA, the fighters were cheered by throngs of people. They were joined by thousands of cars and motorcycles in their journey through the city. The convoy made its way through working-class neighborhoods, where people lined up along the streets and overpasses. The victory parade coincided with the anniversary of the brutal 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in which Israeli forces drove all the way to Beirut in face of a heroic three-month resistance by Palestinian and Lebanese fighters.

The rout of the pro-Israeli forces occurred over a two-day period in late May. With initial signs of the Israeli withdrawal, thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian workers and farmers descended on the SLA positions. Daily convoys to the south from all parts of the country have continued since. Many of these end up in the border village of Kfar Kila, located a few hundred yards from the Israeli settlement of Metula. Thousands of people have demonstrated there on an almost daily basis against the continued Israeli occupation of Arab lands.  
 

On June 4 this reporter witnessed the scene in Kfar Kila. Some 10,000 people were demonstrating at a barbed wire fence erected by the Israeli government. At the main watch tower, youth gathered to throw rocks over the fence onto barricaded Israeli troops. Young people would sing in English the rock song "We will, we will rock you," and then the stones would fly. The demonstrators at Kfar Kila were Lebanese as well as Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon.

Contingents came from several Palestinian refugee camps. One Palestinian youth waving a Palestinian flag, who did not want to be identified, said, "Tell the world that our victory will also come. We are next!"  
 
Palestinians demand right to return
Palestinian refugees, who number some 370,000 in Lebanon, have stepped into the political openings provided by the collapse of the occupation to press for their right to return to their homeland. For a four-day period thousands descended to the border fence separating Lebanon from their occupied homeland.

At the fence between the villages of Douhaira and Yarine was a sea of Palestinian refugees. People of all ages, as far as the eye could see, stood on a small ledge against the barbed wire barrier on the Lebanese side of the border. Between them and a fence on the Israeli side was a three-yard space. Palestinians from the Galilee and other parts of Israel lined the opposite fence, separated from their brothers and sisters in Lebanon by patrols of Israeli troops armed with M-16 rifles and wearing flak jackets and helmets. There are some 800,000 Palestinians still living within the boundaries of Israel.

People on both sides carried signs with names of relatives they were trying to locate. Salah, an elderly refugee explained, "I have not seen my brother in over 50 years. I have been coming here for three days now in the hope of finding him. For us, the liberation of south Lebanon is a big deal, it means the chance of seeing our families. But more than that, as you can see something historic is happening here--contact with Palestinians who stayed behind."

Some of the bewildered Israeli soldiers were convinced to carry letters, parcels, cell phones, money, and other gifts across the three-meter gap between the separated groups of Palestinians.  
 
Response of Israeli soldiers
One soldier, who refused to be identified, talked briefly to this reporter. "This is bad," he said, touching the fence. "It must come down." Another, a Jew originally from Egypt, said in another conversation, "This is no good. Families should be reunited. Maybe with peace that can happen." Asked if he supported the right of the Palestinians pressed against the fence to return to their homes, he thought for a while and responded, "I don't see why not, I have no objection."

Khaled, a resident of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, had gone to the fence for two straight days. Later, in Beirut, he said going to the fence "changed everything. Seeing our Palestinian brothers and sisters from the other side, touching them, talking with them, dancing with them was a big change. We cut the fence with the wire cutters we had brought. We actually stepped into Palestine, touched it and tasted its soil. The return to our homeland used to be a theoretical dream, now we can taste it! Why not? We already cut the wire once and stepped in."

After five days the Israeli army declared the entire zone a closed military area. This reporter witnessed through the fence using a zoom lens Israelis manning road blocks and turning away cars, preventing Palestinians living in Israel from reaching the zone. Both sides of the border were hit with tear gas and percussion bombs. Twelve were arrested in Israel.  
 

In Bint Jbeil, one of the main towns in the southern formerly occupied zone, lies a substantial installation surrounded by blue and white fences, which are the colors of the Israeli flag. Three Hezbollah members stand guard at the facility. "This used to be the regional headquarters of the Israeli occupiers," said one of the resistance fighters who did not wish to give his name. "They literally retreated in a very big hurry. They did not expect to." Across the entrance still stands an abandoned tank of the SLA. "As you can see we are now controlling the base." Inside the base, resistance fighters were still clearing mines and other dangerous explosives. Vast parts of land in the south are now cordoned off by the resistance fighters due to mines laid by the Israelis.

Similar scenes could be seen throughout the area. Base after base was under the control of Hezbollah forces, and there was little or no visible presence of the Lebanese government troops.

There is discipline and organization by working people across the area. Most liberated villages are guarded by the resistance forces. Christian villages in particular have extra guards to ensure no retaliatory acts against collaborators are carried out. Most SLA commanders were Christian.  
 

Tobacco farms make up large parts of the south of Lebanon. The village of Aaita Ech Chaab is surrounded by hills with tobacco as the main crop. One farmer, who was known as "the Hajje," said, "Liberation is a great joy. Seeing you all come from Beirut is a great joy. This is something that was impossible for 22 years." She added, "From our small village 35 people were taken to the SLA-run Khiam prison camp for their resistance actions."

Across her front door stood an abandoned SLA armored personnel carrier with several children playing on it. "Liberation for me," said one, "was seeing my parents. My dad was in Khiam for two years and my mom for one year. On liberation night they knocked on the door!"

"I want you to know that Christian villagers protected us from the SLA killers. It was not a Muslim/Christian thing at all. It is important that you tell people that. In fact, 70 percent of the collaborators are Muslims," explained the Hajje.

"We hope that liberation will improve our living conditions," continued the Hajje. "Last year our family produced 400 kg of tobacco. We sold the tobacco to the Lebanese government company as always. This brought us 4 million LL [US$2,700]. You cannot live on that. At the same time, we were forced to buy more expensive Israeli goods. For example, Israeli tomatoes were 6,000 LL/Kg [US$4]. Now we can get Lebanese tomatoes for 2,000 LL.

"All this meant that many villagers were forced to go work in Israeli farms and factories near the border," said the Hajje. "I want you to understand that these people were not collaborators, they had no choice but to work there. From our village, 15 went daily there. Now this process has stopped. The problem of production of tobacco, of prices, remain. God willing, with liberation, all these things will get better."  
 

Khiam prison camp has become a symbol and center of daily mass protest at the crimes of the Israeli occupiers and their puppet SLA militia. This reporter witnessed thousands of working people, Lebanese and Palestinian, Muslim and Christian, visit the camp. Trade unions, schools, student groups, political parties, and individual people make the trek to the camp each day. At the jailhouse, prisoners who were recently liberated act as tour guides.

They showed the torture chambers, where for days on end prisoners were subjected to electric shocks, the hooks in the courtyard where prisoners were hung, and solitary confinement rooms two square meters with no toilet or window. One woman from a nearby village, who identified herself as Souad, said, "These collaborators are not human beings. They have no room in our communities. The government better keep them away."

The Lebanese government has 1,700 collaborators in custody. Their trials have already begun in military courts. Some 7,000 more fled to Israel. On June 5, the courts issued 84 sentences, ranging from six months to five years in jail. The Daily Star reports that some suspects had been previously released and were found in the liberated zones and subsequently beaten by residents.

Hezbollah official Mohammed Raad denounced the sentences as too lenient. "If we don't penalize the criminal, we will be legalizing the ideology of treason," he said. "Clemency for these people will spark a civil and social crisis in many of the liberated villages, which suffered much at the hands of these collaborators."

Israeli public security minister Shlomo Ben-Ami welcomed the sentences and hoped for the rapid return of SLA members. Patriarch of the Lebanese Maronite Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, called for the early return to Lebanon of those that fled to Israel.  
 

Paris has assembled a fleet in Toulon for dispatch to Lebanon as part of a planned deployment of UN troops. There are already 4,500 UN troops just outside the liberated areas and the UN is preparing an overall force of 8,000 to be sent in, including a strong French contingent.

U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright said in a statement that Washington hopes "very much that the Lebanese Army would begin to move into southern Lebanon and that the Lebanese would take control over their own territory."

Reflecting the fears of broad layers of the Lebanese capitalist class, Cardinal Sfeir echoed Albright's wishes. "We demand the immediate deployment of the army," he said. Couching his demand with a supposed threat to Christians in the south, the cardinal called "on all Christians to solidarize with the populations in south Lebanon who fear for their future due to the situation created over the last days."  
 
 
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