One year on from Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, ominous signs return to the Bekaa Valley

The relative calm of an October Saturday morning in Nabi Chit is at odds with recent events.

Two days before, the edge of the village in the eastern Bekaa Valley was bombed by Israel, part of a wave of attacks on a region that is still trying to recover from the Israel-Hezbollah war last year.

At one of the mosques, the facade bears images of Hezbollah’s secretary generals and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Near a side entrance, the town’s mayor Hani Al Moussawi greets The National as another delegation departs.

As the others get into a car, one man lingers behind. A day later, he would be identified as Hussein Al Moussawi, killed in an Israeli strike while driving nearby. Hezbollah would refer to him as a "commander" in a funeral notice, while the Israeli military would claim he was an important weapons procurer charged with smuggling arms from Syria to Lebanon.

Israel says its attacks are on Hezbollah members and alleged infrastructure. But it had also targeted businesses, schools and homes, unsettling a population fearful of returning to the dark days they hoped were behind them.

A year ago, the Bekaa Valley, where Iran-backed Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s, was pummelled as Israel expanded its war in southern Lebanon to the entire country. Twelve months since the ceasefire, the fertile valley that stretches between Lebanon’s mountains and the Syrian border is again under fire.

"Our people are used to such circumstances," said Mr Al Moussawi. "The world sees this brutality" yet "remains silent". He added that for decades, "the enemy has attacked repeatedly: before 1982, then in 1993, 1996, 2006 and now again."

Despite the escalating tension, Nabi Chit bustles on a Saturday morning late in t