Lebanese return to find their village wiped off the map 

The people of the town of Rab Thalatheen (Marjayoun district) returned to their hometown yesterday (Tuesday), according to the Lebanese news site Al-Akhbar. They parked their cars at the entrances to the destroyed neighborhoods and began searching for traces of their homes in the narrow streets, whose features had completely disappeared.

"The enemy (sic) carried out an operation to avenge Rab Thalatheen of a story that began in 1948," says the son of the town, Hassan Fakih, pointing out that "the occupation army (IDF), deliberately destroyed two neighborhoods in the past three months, while its soldiers destroyed the rest of the houses before burning them."

Opposite the occupied town of Hunin, and the Israeli town of Misgav Am, the houses of Rab Thalatheen were built on a hill 650 meters high. "The town has been inhabited for hundreds of years, and it has caves, burials and olive presses dating back to the Canaanite and Roman eras," according to the mayor of the town, Abu Jaafar Hammoud. He pointed out that "the history and present of the Rab Thalatheen are linked to its proximity to Palestine (Israel), and its distinctive geographical location, which emerged its importance after the enemy's occupation of Palestine, when the town became a springboard for military operations against the enemy and its nearby sites."

He adds: «In 1948, Ahmed Hassan Fakih was martyred by the Haganah gangs because of his role in resisting the Zionist gangs, which tried to displace the townspeople and committed massacres in Houla, Malikiyah and Salaha, and a number of martyrs fell to the town at that time and dozens of its homes were destroyed. After the invasion in 1978, the army of agent Saad Haddad took revenge on the people of the town, after Haddad was wounded by resistance bullets, destroying a large number of its houses.

In the last war, "the enemy destroyed 90% of the houses, and the rest were damaged," according to Mayor Ali Barakat, noting that "there are no houses in Rab Thalateen suitable for habitation, and even damaged houses need a long time to be repaired."

He pointed out that the destruction was inflicted on the town's mosque, Husseinitha, the main water tank and part of the municipal building, while its public library was burned. Electricity, water, roads, olive trees, vineyards, pomegranates and others have not been spared from the destruction, most of which occurred after the ceasefire.

Barakat pointed out that «the biggest loss was the fall of 32 martyrs from the town, in addition to a number of missing people we are still looking for among the rubble of destroyed houses».

Barakat pointed out that the number of residents in the town before the war was estimated at about 2,000 people out of about 4,300 people, some of whom frequent it only in the summer, "after the occupation displaced its people during the years of occupation and repeated attacks to different countries."