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In Ein al-Hilweh, Lebanon, long mired in poverty and despair, Hamas recruitment is up and the downtrodden air has given way to defiance and celebration.
Aug. 24, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET
Ein al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest community of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, has long been a downtrodden place, impoverished and racked by factional violence. Its residents usually have a grim view of their future.
But now, the mood here is nothing but exuberant.
Recruitment for Hamas and its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, is way up across Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee communities, according to Hamas and Lebanese officials. They say that hundreds of new recruits have joined the militants’ ranks in recent months, exhilarated by Hamas’s ongoing war with Israel.
On a rare visit to Ein al-Hilweh, journalists from The New York Times saw posters of the Qassam Brigades’ spokesman, Abu Ubaida, everywhere, his eyes peering out from a red and white checked scarf wrapped around his face like a balaclava, imploring residents to “fight on the path of God.”
In Hamas’s stronghold, the Gaza Strip, where some 40,000 Palestinians have died in 10½ months of war, many people have soured on the group. But elsewhere, Hamas’s willingness to combat Israel has won new adherents.
“It’s true that our weapons cannot match our enemy’s,” Ayman Shanaa, the Hamas chief for this area of Lebanon, said in an interview. “But our people are resilient and they support the resistance. And are joining us.”
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