Protesters at the border wall dividing Lebanon and occupied Palestine on Saturday. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
ADAISSEH/ADLOUN/BEIRUT — Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at Lebanese and Palestinian protesters who attempted to scale the wall on Lebanon’s southern border Saturday, one day after Israeli soldiers killed a protester attempting to cross the border.
Three protesters were admitted to the hospital Saturday with injuries related to falling from the wall and tear gas inhalation, Moueness Kalakesh, the head of Marjayoun Governmental Hospital, told L’Orient Today. All were in stable condition, he said.
Convoys of protesters had made their way to Adaisseh in south Lebanon from points around the country throughout the day to mark the annual commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, amid escalating violence in the occupied territories.
While some were stopped and turned back by security forces at checkpoints, by the evening, hundreds of protesters had gathered near the border wall, bearing Palestinian flags as well as flags of Lebanese parties including Hezbollah, Amal and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Some young men threw rocks and molotov cocktails at the fence and at security cameras mounted on it.
Ahmad Sleiman, a Palestinian with roots in Haifa, said he had come from Tripoli to the protest. “We came here today to show the world that we are here supporting the Palestinians fighting for our country, in the destruction. We are here for our rights,” he told L’Orient Today. “We want to show them that after 70 years, we did not forget the [Palestinian] cause.”
Tarek Faour, a Lebanese protester from Ras Beirut, said he and other Lebanese supporters had come “to stand side by side with the Palestinian resistance, to free the country.”
Meanwhile, mourners elsewhere in south Lebanon buried 21-year-old Mohammad Tahhan, who died Friday after being wounded by Israeli fire as he and a group of other young men attempted to cross the border fence.
Kalakesh said Tahhan had been brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds from live bullets and died under surgery. A second protester who was wounded along with Tahhan has been released from the hospital.
The Lebanese Army and security forces stepped up security measures around the country and particularly on the border and in the vicinity of Palestinian camps. The NNA reported that the army had closed roads on the southern border leading to the area in the Marjayoun plain where last night’s protests took place.
Some scuffles were reported Saturday between security forces and demonstrators trying to get past checkpoints.
The army also set up additional checkpoints in the vicinity of Palestinian camps, with buses being stopped at the checkpoint in Saida on the southbound coastal highway. Convoys of protesters had been planning to head toward the border from the northern camps of Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi, as well as from Beirut.
Adnan Rifai, a popular committee member in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, told L’Orient Today that four men from the camp were detained by Lebanese authorities Saturday after they and a group of more than 20 others had managed to cross the border Friday night and then got stuck in a water channel on the Israeli-occupied side. The Lebanese Army was eventually able to get them out.
Two of the protesters who had gotten stuck in the channel were being treated Saturday at Marjayoun Governmental Hospital for wounds sustained from rubber bullets and tear gas, the NNA reported.
Rifai said residents of the camp would attempt to reach and cross the border again Saturday.
“They want to go to the Palestinian land, to their villages and cities,” he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners in Adloun greeted the arrival of Tahhan’s coffin with celebratory gunfire and women throwing confetti.
Tahhan’s brother, Taha, told our sister publication L’Orient-Le Jour that the deceased, who was the youngest in the family, had “died defending the Palestinian cause.”
“From a young age, he was courageous,” he said. “God willing, we will go to Jerusalem to pray.”
Mourners lift the coffin of Mohammad Tahhan, killed yesterday by Israeli fire, during his funeral in Adloun, Saida, on Friday. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
Their father, Kassem, said, “Yesterday he told me, ‘I am going with my friends to take part in a march in support of Palestine.’” Those were the last words the two exchanged.
Hezbollah on Friday had issued a statement calling for Tahhan to be mourned as a “martyr on the road to Jerusalem.” A spokeswoman for Hezbollah confirmed to L’Orient Today that he was a member of the group, but said that the demonstration on the border had been an individual initiative by the protesters and was not ordered by the party.
Tahhan’s father said he had gone through military training and fought in Syria against “takfiris,” or Sunni jihadists.
Hezbollah also denied that it was behind the firing of missiles from south Lebanon toward Israel on Thursday. No injuries were reported, and the Israeli military did not retaliate. The Lebanese Army later said that it had found three missiles in the vicinity of the Rashidieh Palestinian camp near Sur.
The events in south Lebanon come after more than a week of escalation by Israeli authorities after Palestinian families protested likely eviction from their homes in East Jerusalem. Heavy-handed tactics against Muslim Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — the third-holiest site in Islam — further enraged Palestinians, who live under a regime recognized as apartheid by observers such as Human Rights Watch. After Hamas retaliated by firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, the densely populated territory was targeted by heavy barrages that have killed more than 130 people, around a quarter of them children, according to Palestinian authorities.