Marwahin (; ''Marwāḩīn'') is a municipality in

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, on its border with

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Etymology

According to E. H. Palmer, the name comes either from: . "a place where the wind blows, effacing the traces of dwellings,' or from ."a fan".

History

In 1875,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

found here many ruins, with some

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

camping among the ruins. In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) found here: "Traces of ruins, one tomb with fourteen loculi, three

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s, and one olive-press."

Modern era

On 31 March 1993 an Israeli tank was destroyed and its crew killed in an ambush near Marwahin. The DFLP claimed responsibility for the attack. Two weeks later, 13 April, a further three Israeli soldiers were killed in the security zone. During the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

, Marwahin was the site of ground exchanges between

and

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

, which ended with a massacre of civilians. According to

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

, the villagers of Marwahin reported that there had been some Hezbollah fighters and weapons in their village.'Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War,'

Volume 19, No. 5(E) September 2007 pp.8,15,44,66,147- Lebanese civilian

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s from the town were first ordered by Israeli forces to flee the area, and given two hours to do so. They were then slaughtered in a convoy hit by an Israeli helicopter crew when they proceeded to obey the order to evacuate. Only two persons survived the massacre, by pretending to be dead. According to

, no weapons were found in the vehicles destroyed by the Israeli attacks and personnel who tried to recover the victims' bodies were attacked. Human Rights Watch cited it as one of nine cases where they had ascertained that Israeli warplanes targeted civilian vehicles on roads during the 2006 hostilities. It stated that 23 civilians from this one village were killed by the Israeli strike, including 14 children and 7 women. The study reveals that the prime cause for the high Lebanese civilian death toll was Israel's repeated failure to abide by a fundamental obligation of war rules. On October 8, 2024, during a ground operation in the area, the Israeli military announced the dismantling of a Hezbollah tunnel that extended approximately 25 meters into Israeli territory from the area of Marwahin.

Demographics

In 2014

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

made up 99.67% of registered voters in Marwahin. 95.67% of the voters were

Sunni Muslims Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...

. Before the start of the most recent Israel-Hezbollah War (in 2023), the town had between 3,000 and 4,000 residents, all of whom were displaced by the conflict.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 3
IAAWikimedia commons

Localiban {{Tyre District Populated places in the Israeli security zone 1985–2000 Populated places in Tyre District Sunni Muslim communities in Lebanon