The Baalbeck Commando raid

How Hassan DIAB Nassrallah was captured in a daring raid by "Israeli
crack commandos".

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&4EEAFE701C68F3D7C22571BF00532422

14-Year-Old Nasrallah Recounts Ordeal During Baalbeck Commando
Operation

Nasrallah is a bad surname to have in Lebanon, as Israel tries to break
Hizbullah.
Fourteen-year-old Mohammed Hassan Nasrallah found out the hard way when
Israeli airborne commandos seized his father and four other men in
eastern Lebanon, even though they are unrelated to Hizbullah leader
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Mohammed was asleep, together with his father, mother, brothers and
sisters, when Israeli elite troops broke into his home on August 2,
breaking the doors and shattering the windows of their house in Hay
al-Osseira near the eastern city of Baalbeck.

"They started shouting, they took us out one after the other and tied
our hands behind our backs," he told an Agence France Presse
correspondent in the Bekaa Valley.

Hay al-Osseira, located at the eastern entrance of Baalbeck, a main
Hizbullah stronghold, had been abandoned by its residents following
Israeli bombardments.

But Mohammed's father, Hassan Diab Nasrallah, did not want to leave his
grocery because he was afraid of thieves.

But Wednesday's night visitors did not want to steal food.

"About a dozen soldiers broke into the house. They put the women and
children on one side without tying them up. They placed the men on the
other side. I was with the men," Mohammed said.

Israel said 200 elite commando troops carried out the operation, the
deepest ground incursion into Lebanon since the Jewish state launched
its offensive on Lebanon on July 12 when Hizbullah captured two
soldiers to secure a prisoner swap.

"They were shouting and mistreating us. My mother interfered and told
them to have pity on the children and treat us nicely," Mohammed said.

But one of the Israelis responded: "Shut up or I will kill you,"
according to Mohammed, who said the serviceman also "fired shots over
her head."

Mohammed was taken with his father Hassan Diab, 60, his brother Bilal,
28, the fiance of his sister Hassan al-Borgi, as well as neighbors
Ahmad al-Awta, 60, and Mohammed Shakar, 50.

Escorted by a hundred soldiers, they walked for an hour and 20 minutes
until they reached the helicopters which had landed in a field.

"All along the road, they were asking questions. They spoke fluent
Arabic, some with an accent. They asked us if we were Hizbullah
members, and if we were related to Nasrallah," Mohammed said.

The family name Nasrallah is common in Lebanon, both in Muslim and
Christian communities.

But the Hizbullah chief is from the southern village of Bazourieh, and
is not related to the Nasrallah family from the eastern Baalbeck
region.

The Israeli soldiers boarded the men on the helicopters, then one of
them turned to Mohammed and kicked him, he said.

"They untied me, kicked me in the back and told me to go away," he
said.

It was 2:20 am when the helicopters flew out of the region, with the
captives whom the Jewish state said were Hizbullah members.

"I started running with my slippers. There was an armed drone which was
firing around me. I was not hit, but I was injured by a flying piece of
rock in my back. I hid in the first empty house that I saw," he said.

When the shots ceased around 6:00 am, Mohammed left the hideout and
rushed to his uncle's house in Baalbeck. He found his mother, Um Bilal,
who now only has one hope: that the International Committee for the Red
Cross can give her news of her husband's whereabouts.(AFP) (Photo
released by Israeli Defense Forces shows special forces during a raid
in Baalbeck)

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