BINT JBEIL: Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived to a hero’s welcome in southern Lebanon on Thursday as he attended a rally in Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold close to the border with Israel.
A frenzied crowd of more than 15,000 men, women and children crammed into an outdoor stadium in the village waving Iranian, Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and cheered the hardline leader as he appeared on stage.
Ahmadinejad waved to the crowd and flashed the victory sign.
His two-day official visit is seen as a key boost for the Shia militant party Hezbollah, which is considered a proxy of Iran and which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
Ahmadinejad’s visit to the south marked the closest he has ever come to arch-foe Israel.
Bint Jbeil, a bastion of Hezbollah, was demolished by Israel during the 2006 conflict.
Ahmadinejad later was also to visit Qana, which has earned a grim place in history after being targeted by Israeli shelling that killed 105 civilians who had sought shelter in a UN base in 1996 during the Jewish state’s "Grapes of Wrath" offensive on Lebanon.
The village was again the site of tragedy when a shelter collapsed on dozens of residents, including disabled children, during Israeli strikes at the height of the month-long 2006 war.