Those who pick the men for suicide bombings know what they are doing. Four months ago, they partially succeeded in causing tensions in the southern Lebanese town of al-Baysarieh by using Adnan al-Mohammed. They were more successful with Nidal al-Moughir. What if they choose a third person - a Palestinian resident or refugee - from the town brimming with confessional tensions?
The old woman took advantage of the power outage Sunday night, to pace back and forth in the courtyard of her home in the Palestinian neighborhood of al-Baysarieh. Tension and fear gripped her body.
She expressed concern to her son about what the night may bring to her family and neighbors. The Palestinian woman, whose face was marked with a life of displacement, is afraid of being displaced again. This fear, which she had forgotten since the end of the War of the Camps [1984-1989], was brought back by Nidal al-Moughir.
Nidal al-Moughir was identified as one of the suicide bombers used in the twin attacks in Bir Hassan last week, which left 11 people dead and dozens more wounded.
Shortly after he was identified through DNA tests conducted with his mother, a group of men from the village and its surrounding areas descended upon his family home, burning the house of his father, Hisham al-Moughir, and his car parked outside.
Al-Moughir's father condemned his son's actions and disowned him. He himself used to be a member of the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese Resistance Brigades and was honored by Hezbollah after the July 2006 Israeli aggression. His tasks included carrying bread to those besieged in border towns, which led to him getting injured during an Israeli raid.
He said his son used to accompany him on some of the bread runs. It is well known among the neighbors that many of the family's relatives used to be in Hezbollah. However, what was done in the past is now no longer enough.
Attempting to quell the anger
Since Saturday, many youths in the villages have been sharing text messages calling for a gathering in the town square, "to condemn takfiri thought and express rejection of the presence of families that support it."
Some of them also set the car of Ahmad Khalaf on fire, which was parked outside his home at the town entrance, just a few meters from the family of the suicide bomber of the first Bir Hassan attack, Adnan al-Mohammad, also Palestinian.
The perpetrators claimed Khalaf was "a radical sheikh and the spiritual leader of both al-Moughir and al-Mohammad."
Worried about the repercussions of the young men's wrath, al-Baysarieh's political figures and municipal council called for action. Starting Sunday afternoon, they rallied in the square to stop the young men from gathering. They were supported by Lebanese army units, which were deployed in the area and worked on dispersing the crowds.
The head of the municipality, along with leading political figures, managed to distract the angry young men and invited them to the “husseiniya” [a Shia mosque’s communal hall] for a lecture on national unity, the need not to be drawn into a Sunni-Shia strife, and the roots of the Palestinian presence in the town.
However, a number of young men snuck out of the session and went back to Khalaf's home. They gathered outside and chanted sectarian and anti-Palestinian slogans, leading to the positioning of an army and Internal Security Forces (ISF) unit outside the house.
While al-Baysarieh's prominent figures maintain their rejection of the retaliation against al-Moughir's family and Palestinian residents because of what he or al-Mohammad did, they were unsuccessful in stopping the young men from burning al-Moughir's home and Khalaf’s car.
Forgetting historical ties
Al-Baysarieh is an optimal spot to ignite strife. Almost three years ago, its Lebanese and Palestinian residents united, along with the residents of neighboring New Yarine, against the army and the state, in an uprising to be allowed to build on public land. But today they are separated again and it seems there is no hope of reuniting them.
Many residents of al-Baysarieh decided to forget that they had embraced Palestinian refugees since the 1950s, including the al-Moughir family. They also donated part of its farmland to the people of Yarine and other border towns (the Sunni towns of al-Bustan, al-Dhahira, and Marwahin) following the 1978 Israeli invasion, so they could build houses instead of staying in tents.
In the past years, the town opened its voting boxes to bedouins (who were settled and nationalized since the 1950s), to become part of its electoral district although it is part of Sarafand in real estate records.
Years of intermarriage and neighborly relations were shattered by takfiri thought. Each neighborhood closed its doors. They began to remember the list of martyrs from the town in the Maghdouche battle between some Palestinian factions and the Lebanese movement, Amal.
Today, residents of the Palestinian quarter in al-Baysarieh, which is like the rest of the towns neighborhoods and not a refugee camp, are not reassured by promises that retaliatory acts will not be repeated or by the return of al-Moughir's family to their home on Saturday.
Even the banner put up by al-Mohammad's family declaring that they disowned their son after the Iranian embassy bombing was not enough. Although the family had refused to even receive his remains, they almost fell victim to people’s rage again after the identity of al-Moughir was identified.
According to the Fatah Movement's media officer in Tyre, Mohammad al-Bekai, coordination meetings between a Palestinian committee and Hezbollah and Amal representatives continued until the late hours of Sunday night. The meetings were aimed to control the anger, amid rumors that al-Baysarieh will be targeted by extremist elements to avenge the burning of al-Moughir’s home and Khalaf’s car.
However, the recommendations of the meetings held behind closed doors might not work on the ground. The Palestinian neighborhood is being bombarded with questions about the reasons behind the suicide bombers being chosen from among them to carry out takfiri schemes. They know it is an effective way to ignite strife between Sunnis and Shia and between Lebanese and Palestinians in the town, which embraces them all, along with 6,000 Syrian refugees who now also reside there.
Previous incidents
Today, some people have begun identifying the neighborhood of Yarine with Marwan Hamade (a Lebanese man who left to Syria around one year ago with al-Moughir and al-Mohammad; he is believed by some in the town to be complicit in terrorist operations in Lebanon) and Motlek Jouais (former ISF). Similarly, the Bedouin area was identified with Abdul-Rahman al-Numairy and Bashir al-Bitar, and the Palestinian quarter with Khalaf.
The five men were arrested in 2008 as part of a network led by Toufik Taha, Naim Abbas, and Mohammad Jouma, which was made up of Lebanese and Palestinians. They were suspected of preparing attacks against UNIFIL, the transfer of weapons, and firing rockets against Israel. They were released three years later.
In their confessions at the military court, they admitted to being trained by Abbas for a jihadi operation against Israel. Jouais was accused of participating in a plot against the Directorate General of the ISF and its former head Ashraf Rifi.
Today, both Khalaf (a taxi driver on the Saida route) and al-Bitar, who studied sharia with Numairy and Jouais, maintain they dropped out of the network after their release and are living in the town again. On the other hand, Numairy's family maintains that he currently lives in Beirut.
Al-Baysarieh's Palestinians draw attention to the fact that the rage is not ideological, and that there was mutual hatred between Nidal al-Moughir and the town residents. Al-Akhbarran a story about him after taking Hamade and al-Mohammad to Ahmad al-Assir and then to Syria. The Palestinians are trying to keep out of a new war and indicate that would-be suicide bomber suspects includes more Lebanese than it does Palestinians.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.