Lebanon (MNN) — Lebanon is joining the fight between Iran and the allied United States and Israel, too, courtesy of Hezbollah.
Nuna* with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says, “We’re just glued on our TV, seeing, ‘What is the government doing? What is Hezbollah doing? What is Israel doing?’ It’s like the whole thing has escalated in a way that we did not expect.”
Hezbollah fighters train in southern Lebanon, May 2023. (Photo courtesy of Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons)
Israel added Beirut to its hitlist yesterday following overnight attacks from the Iran-backed political and militant group, Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah started to send weapon missiles towards Israel, and Israel decided, ‘Okay, they want war. Let’s do war.’ They started to bomb heavily, and they killed most of the main chiefs of departments in Hezbollah,” says Nuna.
As thousands of people fled the deadly strike zones, Lebanon’s government sought to distance itself from Hezbollah’s actions — with a bold ban on the militia that it has held back from making until now.
“We had an emergency Cabinet meeting, and the whole Cabinet decided to name Hezbollah as a terrorist organization that is not affiliated [with] the government,” says Nuna. “This is very important, because this might create a civil war.”
The threat of civil war comes from the fact that Hezbollah is both a militant and a political group within Lebanon. It has held the support of Lebanon’s more than 30% Shiite Muslim population for years. Many see the group as a protector against Lebanon’s neighbor to the south, Israel. But Monday’s bombing was Hezbollah’s first claimed attack on Israel in more than a year. Some say it could prove to be Hezbollah’s undoing within Lebanon.
“Now it’s like they gave a carte blanche to Israel to say, ‘okay, you can kill whoever, and you can just destroy whatever is belonging to Hezbollah,’” says Nuna.
Believers and ministries rally
Aid groups like Triumphant Mercy Lebanon are taking action, too. Believers called an emergency meeting to coordinate responses.
(Photo courtesy of Triumphant Mercy Lebanon)
“It’s very important to see Christian organizations working together, and not as entities by themselves,” says Nuna. “We need to pray, really, for the unity of the organizations that are working [together].”
Pray for Gospel opportunities as people celebrate Purim, which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people in modern-day Iran.
“Purim is meaning not only the liberation of the people of God, but also the opening of eyes of the king,” says Nuna.
Don’t forget to pray for Iran as well.
“We pray the purposes of God to come to pass. And the purposes of God are that Iranian people will be saved,” says Nuna. “In the flesh, we want Iran destroyed. But actually, God wants Iran to be saved — yes, saved from this regime that is oppressing people and killing its own people.”
*Pseudonym
Header photo of Beirut, Lebanon courtesy of Maxime Guy/Unsplash.
