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Lebanese youth flock to Hizbollah

Clancy Chassay

Beirut: Eleven-year-old Zahra sits on a desk in a crowded corridor of a west Beirut school and explains eloquently why she believes in the need for resistance.

``All children now want to grow up to fight Israel. It's shameful how we are being treated. What have we as children ever done to them? Nobody cares what happens to us, nobody will do anything if we don't defend ourselves.''

Her friend Howra, also 11 and a refugee from southern Lebanon now living in the school in Zarif, joins in. ``Even if a thousand of our fighters are killed we will remain strong. Even with the Israeli technology, we are not afraid of them; we have the strongest fighters in the world.''

Reserve force

Estimates of the number of Hizbollah fighters active in the field range from 1,000 to 10,000, with a potential reserve force of 200,000. But the daily killing of civilians has created a new militancy among Lebanon's youth, suggesting that Hizbollah can now mobilise thousands more.

Those keen to join the battle disregard the mounting number of deaths of Israeli civilians from Hizbollah's daily barrage of rockets compared to the much higher Lebanese toll.

``We are ready to fight, we are ready to die, we are only waiting for Sayyed Hassan [Hizbollah leader Nasrallah] to give the word,'' says Ali from Bint Jbeil, sitting under a tree by a makeshift tent in Sanaya Gardens, one of Beirut's few parks, now a refugee camp.

Lebanon's Shias have borne the brunt of the Israeli onslaught and many of those driven out of the south are eager to return to defend their villages. But it is not just the poor, dispossessed Shias who are eager to fight: the new militancy now cuts across the class divide.

``I have a good education, a good family, good friends, a career, a privileged home — but I am willing to give up all these things to live in dignity,'' says Mr. Hassan, from a wealthy Shia family. He and his equally privileged friends, Firas and Mohammed, attend one of Lebanon's elite universities, and have the opportunity to work overseas.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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