In Jish, an Indigenous Christian Minority Defiantly Stays in Hezbollah’s Crosshairs

Instead of fleeing the Galilee, hundreds of Zionist Arameans are digging in as they brace for a major escalation

By: Canaan Lidor – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

JISH, northern Israel — In plain view of a Hezbollah stronghold, Shadi Khalloul scanned a fig tree for the best fruit to offer his guests.

“Take some if you have a plastic bag,” Khalloul, 48, said on Monday on a hilltop in his village, about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) from the border with Lebanon.

Khalloul’s disregard for Hezbollah snipers wasn’t due to ignorance. A Jish native, he’s aware of the terrorists’ capabilities — also thanks to his past service as an IDF Paratrooper Brigade officer and his current reserve duty with the IDF Operations Directorate.

Like most of his neighbors, Khalloul has stayed in Jish despite frequent shelling, because he won’t be cowed by the Lebanese terror group.

His defiance is characteristic of Jish and its small but tight-knit community of Aramean Christians: a Catholic ethnoreligious group of just a few thousand people who threw their lot in with the State of Israel. They trace their heritage to the ancient Arameans who lived here 3,000 years ago.

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