BEIRUT - Since the start of the Israeli full-scale war on Lebanon on September 23, the occupation army has been deliberately targeting all forms of basic life in all regions. There is no safe place in Lebanon. Everyone is targeted.

The occupation army is intensifying its raids targeting emergency, medical, industrial and agricultural facilities. The systematic firings are intended to eliminate all traces of life. It targets municipalities in a bid to displace more civilians and evacuate residential neighborhoods, some of which have turned into scorched lands.

On Saturday afternoon, October 19, 2024, a hostile Zionist raid targeted the town of Baaloul, in Western Bekaa. In the air raid, Hajj Haidar Shahla, the mayor of Sohmor, was martyred. He spared no effort since the beginning of the war to serve and secure safe housing for the displaced people in coordination with fellow mayors of the neighboring villages. 

Hajj Haidar Shahla was also keen to immediately reopen the roads that the Israeli occupation army systematically cut off. He also took immediate steps to restore water and electricity to households even though the hostile MK drones and aircraft have not left the skies of Sohmor since October last year.

Despite the limited capacities of Sohmor municipality resulting from the economic woes facing Lebanon, Shaheed (Martyr) Hajj Haidar Shahla was keen to serve the people of Sohmor, focusing on development and educational services. During the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hajj Haidar formed a crisis cell to secure health services for patients.

He also had a long record of generosity and caring for orphans and poor families. Days before being targeted, the Zionist regime shelled his home. His martyrdom and the shelling of his house revealed the lies by Washington that Israel just targets Hezbollah and its fighters.

Hajj Haidar Shahla also took various initiatives to secure the basic needs of the steadfast people in Sohmor and that is why the Zionists assassinated him. However, his name will remain immortalized in the record of the victory makers in the town of Sohmor known as “the mother of martyrs”. His name will be added to the list of his three martyred siblings.

Hajj Haidar Shahla was martyred with his cousin Hajj Hassan Shahla, an exemplary helpful man according to the people of Western Bekaa, especially the town where he was martyred, i.e. Baaloul.

For many years, Hajj Hassan Shahla built with his own hands and the hands of his skilled builders most of the stone walls there. He was martyred after days of exhaustion while trying to provide safe housing for the displaced.

Along with Hajj Haidar Shahla and Hajj Hassan Shahla, Mahdi Menhem was martyred too. He was the father of Ali Menhem, a civilian, who was killed during the first raid on Sohmor on September 23, 2023. The fourth martyr is a young man named Abdullah Dheeb. The only child of his family from the town of Qaraoun, Dheeb, a scout, was martyred while passing by.

As in Gaza, the occupation regime is adopting a strategy of “restructuring the administrative dimension of the regions” by killing mayors, dignitaries, family representatives, and anyone responsible for any of the civil service sectors. In parallel, the Israeli occupation regime deliberately bombs municipal equipment and machinery to prevent them from providing urgent services.

In addition to killing mayors and employees of municipalities, as it did with the mayor of Nabatieh and his assistants, the raids deliberately target ambulances and food aid. These actions constitute war crimes according to international law that grants these civilian figures immunity from being targeted during wars.

These daily massacres reveal the savagery of the US-Zionist aggression, which seeks to paralyze all the components of normal life at an unprecedented pace, particularly residential neighborhoods, infrastructure projects, farms, industries, forests and orchards.