Sohmor, Lebanon: A Legacy of Persecution and Resistance, Now under Sustained Zionist Bombardment

A History of Persecution 

On 20 September 1984, Sohmor was the site of a horrific massacre perpetrated by members of the militia of the Zionist-backed South Lebanon Army led, at the time, by Antoine Lahad. The South Lebanon Army consisted mainly of Christian and Druze militiamen that had been trained and armed by Israel.

While the Zionist militia encircled the village, the SLA gathered 300 men, aged 16 to 39 years, in the main square to allegedly investigate an ambush that had led to the killing of three Druze militia. The shooting went on for 15 to 30 minutes, killed 13 and wounded 40. Children and elderly were among the dead and injured. 

Comparisons should be made to the massacre of Palestinians of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 when similar tactics were used to slaughter more than 3000 Palestinian refugees. From the Palquest records: 

Lebanese Forces militia, units from the South Lebanon Army (a break-away force under Major Saad Haddad, a proxy of Israel in South Lebanon), and militias from the right-wing Guardians of the Cedars entered the city after sunset on 16 September, under the supervision and protection of Israeli forces. For nearly three days, they tortured and killed everyone they came across, without discriminating between Palestinians and Lebanese. Not even hospitals were spared their hostilities, on 17 September, armed militias stormed Akka Hospital and brutally killed several Palestinian patients, doctors, and nurses who were there.

It is worth noting that during the 2024 war, Israel assassinated the mayor of Sohmor, Haj Haidar Shahla, demonstrating how the town of Sohmor has historically been a target of Zionist ethnic cleansing projects in Lebanon and against the Resistance.

I asked Sondoss Al Assad for a personal history of her home town, and she sent me the following vivid memories: 

Sohmor has a long history of resisting aggressors. Before my grandmother passed away, she used to tell me how, in earlier times, people performed their religious rituals in caves out of fear of the Ottoman occupiers, who persecuted Shiites. She also told me how she once witnessed, with her own eyes, an ambush carried out by resistance fighters against a convoy of French colonial officers. 

My grandmother was an extraordinarily strong woman. She was an orphan; her father had sailed to Latin America and never returned. She told me about a camp set up in the plains of Mashghara for Palestinians who were displaced from their homes in Galilee in 1948, and how she used to offer them simple help. She married my grandfather, and they lived together in Beirut. She gave birth to ten children. When my grandfather had to travel to Saudi Arabia for work, she carried the burden of raising them alone. She planted, harvested, and took care of the orchard. 

 As political tensions accelerated in the 1970s, her home became a gathering place for political activism, though it was divided between Islamist and leftist views. Her sons would argue and fight, and she was always the one trying to bring them back together. She told me how the SLA forces of Saad Haddad used to attack and shell the village. Soon, her eldest son joined the camps in South Lebanon in the Taybeh area, where he met Mostafa Chamran, and shortly afterward, he was arrested and taken to the Ansar detention camp near Nabatiah. Despite everything, she remained unbreakable. During that time, the founder of the resistance in Sohmor, Reda Al-Shaer, used to visit their home. He had a deep influence on the younger generation, and many people were moved by his powerful and engaging way of speaking. The house became like a beehive: a girl bakes saj bread for the fighters; other washes their clothes and hang them discreetly so they would not be seen; another sew uniforms for them. 

Sondoss explained that her youngest aunt was murdered by a Zionist airstrike in 1993. She had refused to leave the town despite the attacks, and one day, she went to the orchard to pick fruit and bring vegetables home. An Israeli warplane tracked her and struck her with a missile. Her body was scattered across the land beneath the olive trees. 

Sondoss’ grandmother remained steadfast despite the loss in her family; many resistance fighters were nurtured and grew up in her home. Some were wounded in the Israeli terrorist pager attacks in Lebanon during the 2024 war, when thousands of civilians, fighters, and children were murdered and mutilated by the explosive devices concealed in the pagers used by the group. One young man from the town of Sohmor, Daniel Menem, was fighting to defend Khiam, in the south, from the Zionist invasion in 2024. His body remained out in the open for five months before it was possible to recover him and bury him in Sohmor. 

Remember that the fighters from Sohmor and all over Lebanon are also students, doctors, journalists, cameramen, medics, and ambulance drivers — they are the sons of the region that refuse to bow down to the Zionist expansionist doctrine. Resistance in this land will never die, however many times they are bombed, targeted, and massacred. Every Zionist crime leads to greater resistance and hardened resolve among the people of this land, borne out of generations of oppression and conflict. As my driver said to me, “We have everything in this region. They will never leave us alone”.

As Sondoss wrote:  

So, this is Sohmor—like the other villages of Western Beqaa. Its people made great sacrifices, but they never retreated. They sense the colonial danger, and they defend their right to remain in their land.

When my grandmother passed, MP Ihab Hamadeh said the following in her honour: 

‘I looked into the face of Umm Ghassan and saw in its wrinkles the geography of Western Bekaa—resisting, confronting, and victorious. The wrinkles of her face were like the hills themselves, the hills of confrontation, and the hills of martyrdom. This mother carried the banner of struggle and gave blood for this path, for the dignity, honour, and liberation that this region achieved’.