For a child who grew up in the shadow of Israeli strikes and all forms of aggression, it was hard to believe that the Zionist nightmare would come to an end in Lebanon.
For a child who witnessed the Israeli war in April 1996 and was terrified by the horrible photos of children who were martyred in Qana and Al-Mansouri massacres, the idea of a Lebanon free of Israeli occupation was just a dream, an unbelievable dream! However, after years of resistance, this dream came true.
I was 11 years old in May 25, 2000, when south Lebanon was liberated from the Israeli occupation.
The Lebanese government announced that day as a national day, and called it Resistance and Liberation Day.
That night, I was so excited to the extent that I couldn’t sleep.
I was waiting to have our journey in the liberated south.
I couldn’t believe that I would visit the southern towns that I used to hear about in the news bulletins: Al-Khiam, Bint Jbeil, Beit Yahoun, Kawneen and many other villages.
On May 26, 2000 our journey’s destination was Bint Jbeil, where a celebration was organized there, with a long-awaited speech for Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah was to take place.
The moment when the Resistance Leader appeared in that ceremony was really historic! Although I was child back then, I couldn’t hold back my tears.
After years of oppression and fear, I knew what dignity means.
During his speech, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed on the importance of not omitting the word “Resistance” from the name of the occasion.
“Some are calling this day the “Liberation Day.” No, I urge you to call it “Resistance and Liberation Day.” I didn’t understand Sayyed Nasrallah’s recommendation on that day.
But then, I knew his eminence wanted to say that the Resistance has been and will still be the key for any liberation.
He wanted to tell the former Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Abbas Mousawi, that his “primary will” of preserving the Resistance was fulfilled.
'I tell you: this ‘Israel’ that owns nuclear weapons and has the strongest air force in this region… ‘Israel’ whose military was once described as the ‘invincible’ army, is weaker than a spider web,” Sayyed Nasrallah said in his resounding speech in Bint Jbeil on May 26, 2000.
Our journey on that day was not only to Bint Jbeil.
My dad was keen to take us to the border with occupied Palestine.
“You see that green land with a white house there? It’s Palestine,” my father told me and my sister.
“Can’t we go there?” I asked.
“Not now, but later we will, surely we will,” my father said.
20 years have passed since that day, and the faith in liberating Palestine is growing.
We know that the pathway is still long and tough.
But we are readying ourselves and our children for that day.
The day when we will liberate Palestine and pray in Al-Quds.