{"id":57717,"date":"2026-03-30T08:29:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=57717"},"modified":"2026-03-30T08:29:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:29:43","slug":"idf-war-crimes-galvanize-christians-to-unite-with-hezbollah-against-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=57717","title":{"rendered":"

IDF war crimes galvanize Christians to unite with Hezbollah against Israel<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In a village in northern Lebanon, a crucifix hangs next to a portrait of one of\u00a0Hezbollah<\/a>\u2019s most revered leaders.<\/p>\n

The Catholic town of Ras Baalbek, which has two Byzantine churches, is working with the Iranian-backed militant group to try to preserve its heritage and protect its 6,000 devout residents from attack by\u00a0Islamic State<\/a>\u00a0(IS) terrorists in nearby Syria.<\/p>\n

So close are the two communities that Hezbollah buys a Christmas tree each year for the villagers.<\/p>\n

Rifaat Nasrallah, 60, a quarryman whose marble sarcophagi line the village cemetery, asks: \u201cHow can we as Christians in this area not be with Hezbollah? They protect our churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey helped us fight IS. During Covid they gave us free care in their hospitals. When there was no electricity they gave us generators. How can we not be with them now?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2026\/03\/28\/hezbollah-ras-baalbek-village-lebanon-christmas-tree\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57724,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57717\/revisions\/57724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}