Fighting casts silence over Muslim holiday
Posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Women in southern Lebanon wept at the graves of loved ones killed in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, while many Iraqis stayed home amid fears of violence Monday at the start of a major holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
The three-day holiday of Eid al-Fitr is customarily celebrated with family gatherings, presents and lunchtime feasts, but fighting has cast a shadow this year across much of the Middle East.
In the bombed-out villages of southern Lebanon, the mood was somber and the festivities muted.
“There is no Eid. There is only sadness and desperation and fear for the future,” said Salma Salameh, a 43-year-old teacher in the predominantly Shiite village of Blatt.
Many Lebanese gathered in cemeteries to pay their respects to the more than 855 Lebanese who were killed during the 34-day conflict, most of them civilians.
In the southern village of Qana, where an Israeli airstrike on July 30 killed 29 Lebanese, women dressed in black wept over the graves. In Aitaroun, which lost 41 villagers to the conflict, families laid flowers and read Koran verses at the graves.
In Beirut, many Lebanese left mosques after morning prayers and went to the grave of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a February 2005 car bombing.
Celebrations in the southern village of Halta were replaced with the funeral of a 12-year-old boy who was killed Sunday by an Israeli cluster bomb. U. N. de-mining experts say about 1 million cluster bombs failed to explode when Israel dropped them during the fighting this summer.
As if to underscore the tensions, Lebanese security officials said Israeli warplanes conducted overflights Monday as far north as the outskirts of Beirut — a rare occurrence since a U. N.-brokered cease-fire halted the fighting Aug. 14.
The commander of the U. N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon has called Israeli overflights a clear violation of the U. N. resolution ending the fighting, but Israel has said it would continue them because arms smuggling to Hezbollah guerrillas has not stopped.
The start of Eid al-Fitr, which means the festival of breaking the dawn-to-dusk fast during the month of Ramadan, is determined by clerics based on the sighting of the new moon. While the holiday began Monday in most Arab countries, it will start today in Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
Some Shiites in Lebanon and Iraq also will begin the holiday today.
In peaceful parts of the Middle East, the festivities Monday were joyous. Children in Kuwait and Bahrain dressed up in their new holiday clothes and received sweets, cakes and money from neighbors and relatives.
In war-torn Iraq, however, many Sunni Muslims stayed inside out of fear that they would fall victim to car bombs or gunfire from Shiite militiamen in Baghdad.
Nadhim Aziz said there were fewer worshippers this year at a local Baghdad mosque to offer the early morning prayers on the holiday.
“We were 50 to 60 in the mosque. Last year, there were about 400,” Aziz lamented.
Security was tightened in the Jordanian capital of Amman ahead of today’s celebrations, with armored personnel carriers manned by gun-toting soldiers being positioned at the main intersections and in front of luxury hotels. Suicide bombers killed 60 people in blasts at three hotels in Amman last November.
Shiite and Muslim clergymen across Lebanon said they would not be receiving celebratory greetings at their homes or offices this year because of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict and the violence in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Lebanon’s most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, warned worshippers in his sermon Monday of the perils facing the Arab world as a result of the “rising international campaign against Islam.” The spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Sunnis, the Grand Mufti Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, urged national unity and an end to the divisions that have plagued Lebanon.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
