Palestinians in Lebanon are ready to fight if Israel starts a war with Hezbollah | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Shatila refugee camp, Beirut, Lebanon – Palestinians in Lebanon have watched Israel’s attack on Gaza with seething anger and now face the prospect of a similar fate if Israel wages an all-out war against the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Hezbollah began fighting with Israel almost immediately after Israel began its war against Gaza, killing over 37,000 people and uprooting almost the entire population.

The Lebanese group has repeatedly stated that it would stop its attacks on Israel once there is a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel stops bombing the population living there.

The Israeli attack followed a Hamas-led surprise raid on Israeli communities and military bases on October 7 that killed 1,139 people and captured 250.

Ready to go home

In the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, many people involved in resistance movements told Al Jazeera that they were not afraid and would fight for Hezbollah and the broader “axis of resistance” in the region against Israel.

But they fear for their families and the civilian population. They fear that Israel could deliberately attack densely populated residential areas in Lebanon, such as the Palestinian camps where tens of thousands of people live in close quarters.

“The Israeli army has no ethics. It does not respect human rights and does not consider the rights of children,” said Ahed Mahar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) in Shatila.

“The Israeli army is driven only by revenge.”

About 250,000 Palestinians live in 12 refugee camps in Lebanon. They fled there after Zionist militias expelled them from their homes to pave the way for the creation of Israel in 1948 – a day known as the Nakba, which means “catastrophe.”

Since then, Palestinians have longed to return to their homeland, Hassan Abu Ali, a 29-year-old man who grew up in Shatila, told Al Jazeera.

If a major war broke out in the country, he said, he and his mother would pack a few belongings and go to the border between Lebanon and Israel.

“I think many Palestinians will try to return to Palestine immediately if there is a war. That is what people in the camp are talking about,” he said.

Abu Ali said he believes Israel can bomb Palestinian camps and then claim they are housing resistance fighters. Human rights groups and legal scholars say this justification is similar to the one Israel has used to bomb residential areas and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip.

If the camps in Lebanon are destroyed, Palestinians would have “no choice” but to return to their homeland, Abu Ali said, adding that as stateless refugees in Lebanon, Palestinians face harsh legal discrimination and live in poverty.

“The only places I could go would be Palestine or Europe,” Abu Ali told Al Jazeera. “But to get to Europe I need $10,000 or $12,000 for a smuggler to get out of here. That’s impossible.”

Ready for battle?

In Shatila, several Palestinians declared that their fellow citizens would join the armed struggle against Israel if it started a major war against Hezbollah.

They added that Hamas has drawn thousands of recruits from its traditional following and from communities historically linked to Fatah, a rival faction led by Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

“First, there are many resistance fighters in all the camps in Lebanon. And secondly… if a big war breaks out, we are not afraid. We have thousands and thousands of fighters who are ready to die a martyr’s death for the liberation of Palestine,” said a man named Fadi Abu Ahmad, a Hamas member in the camp.

Abu Ahmad acknowledged that civilians – especially children, women and the elderly – could suffer disproportionate harm if Israel attacks Palestinians in Lebanon, but he claimed that most Palestinian refugees believe “their blood is the price they must pay for the liberation of Palestine.”

He drew a comparison with Algeria’s war of independence against France, which lasted from 1954 to 1962 and resulted in the deaths of a million Algerians. Other Palestinians, however, said they feared for their families and loved ones if war broke out in Lebanon.

“I am not afraid of the Israelis or of what might happen to me,” said Ahmad, 20, a Palestinian in Shatila who did not want to give Al Jazeera his last name.

“But I’m afraid of what they might do to my little brother and sister. They are only 14 and nine years old. I don’t want anything to happen to them.”

What to expect?

Despite Israel’s threats, many Palestinians do not expect a major war against Lebanon given Hezbollah’s strength.

They believe that the group’s arsenal, which reportedly includes Iranian-made missiles and sophisticated drones, will deter Israel from a serious escalation of the conflict.

But Hamas’ Abu Ahmad points out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could still start a war against Lebanon to appease his far-right coalition partners and stay in power.

“Netanyahu is a criminal,” he told Al Jazeera. “And we know that if there is a war in Lebanon, there will be many civilian deaths, including Palestinians. It could be like Gaza.”

Mahar of the PFLP-GC said a war between Hezbollah and Lebanon would be different from the last major war.

In 2006, Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others in a surprise ground attack. In response, Israel attacked civilian infrastructure and power plants in Lebanon.

The fighting lasted 34 days and claimed the lives of 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers. However, the Palestinian camps were largely spared.

“We all expect that this time the camps will be targeted,” Mahar told Al Jazeera. “Israel no longer has any red lines.”

“Israel exists to commit crimes against Palestinians.”