The ground invasion...a Lebanese memory full of pain...

At zero distance, the Israeli military forces had prepared to begin the ground invasion of southern Lebanon, while the decision-makers in Israel were meeting and planning to give the army a free hand to practically start the war on Lebanon, by occupying its lands and violating its sovereignty.

Beirut, which wears its dark black dress, is enveloped in grief, and has not yet recovered from the extent of the severe blows that its southern suburb witnessed, most notably the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, whose assassination the Minister of the Occupation Army, Yoav Galant, considered an important occasion to change the facts on the ground and raise the pace of escalation towards the ground operation.

The wounds, pains, hardships, and scenes of destruction are unforgettable and indelible from the memory of the Lebanese, in the invasion of 1982 and the war of 2006, and despite the lack of recovery in the country that suffers from great economic, political, and social unrest and difficulties, Israel, with direct and full support from the United States, decided to disturb the Lebanese people’s sleep, steal their security, dispel their sleep, and disturb their comfort, because this is the only policy that the occupation knows, and its language is killing, threatening, and displacement.

The command of the so-called Northern Region in the army has drawn up military plans for the large-scale destruction of villages and towns in southern Lebanon, along a border strip extending for about two kilometers, in preparation for occupying it, and then expanding the area of control to about seven kilometers of Lebanese territory and turning it into a military buffer zone, under the pretext of expelling the Radwan forces to the north.

The Israeli military order reached the UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese army to move away from the border, and the occupation army decided to consider three entire areas in its settlements on the border as closed military zones, and early yesterday evening it began its violent artillery bombardment of some southern towns, in preparation for imposing a fait accompli and then gradually starting the ground aggression.

In its previous ground invasions and artillery, air and naval bombardment, Israel turned Lebanon into a disaster-stricken state. Buildings collapsed and are still gathering memories, streets turned into battlefields, destruction reached all areas, and shrapnel from cannons penetrated and planted in the bodies of honorable people, reaping lives and uprooting organs.

Lebanon rises every time, and sings its immortal tune (Lebanon will return), but the aggressive Israeli attack may prolong this time the return and the return, because no one can estimate the size of the battle with the start of the Israeli ground invasion, and only the lions of Hezbollah who are stationed on the high borders, will decide the course of the war after they rushed towards the borders to defend the honor and pride of the Lebanese people.

Lebanon is witness to difficult memories, and in all previous ground invasions, it offered its best leaders and sons as martyrs, on the altar of freedom and independence. Will it succeed this time in defeating Israel, as it did in the 2006 war, when it forced the occupation army to withdraw, or will Israel impose its hegemony and arrogance with its strength and military superiority, with clear and direct support from the United States, amidst a terrible international silence, as if Israel, an occupying entity, is the one deciding the map of living and interfering in the lives of peoples, even the lives of the Lebanese people, which are full of worries and sorrows.