Conflict stirs mother's memories

Orna Shimoni, 65, knows more than most about Israel's involvement in Lebanon.

After her youngest son, Eyal, an Israeli tank commander was killed in Lebanon in 1997, Mrs Shimoni focused her efforts on getting Israel to withdraw its troops from the Arab country.

She was a member of Four Mothers - arguably the most influential protest movement in Israel's history - whose campaigning helped lead to Israel pulling its forces out of Lebanon in 2000.

"Of course not everyone agreed, they said Hezbollah would chase us into Israel," says the mother of five at her home in United Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov in northern Israel.

"I thought we can't defend Israel from Lebanon, we have to defend Israel from Israel. I thought we must withdraw, we must see if there is a chance for peace."

But more than three weeks ago, a Hezbollah cross-border raid and capture of two Israeli soldiers triggered the current conflict.

Now Mrs Shimoni, who fought so hard to get Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, says she fully supports her country's reinvasion of its neighbour.

"What are we to do? Hezbollah wants us in the sea. They started this war and we must fight back. If one day all the soldiers in the Israeli Defence Force were sick, this country would be like Auschwitz. We cannot turn other cheek," says Mrs Shimoni, a fit, wiry woman with a mane of straggly blond hair falling below her shoulders.

'Moved to tears'

Since the start of the conflict, more than 2,100 Hezbollah rockets have pounded northern Israel turning communities into ghost towns and killing more than 20 Israeli civilians.

Mrs Shimoni - a widow, whose husband died during routine surgery in 1992 - is emblematic of a nation that overwhelmingly supports the war in Lebanon from all political stripes.

"I was optimistic that we could all live in peace like in Switzerland. But now my outlook is less naïve and a lot darker"
Orna Shimoni

Israel withdrew from Lebanon, they say, only to be attacked again by Hezbollah.

But Mrs Shimoni says that the war troubles her deeply - the thought that soldiers will not return to their mothers.

"On the day the Israeli soldiers withdrew from Lebanon, I went up to the border hoping that maybe I would find my son," she says. "I looked at the faces of the soldiers crossing into Israel but of course I never found him."

She also says that she was moved to tears when a young dead Lebanese girl was pulled from the rubble of a house bombed by Israeli jets.

But like most Israelis, Mrs Shimona blames Hezbollah for firing rockets from areas close to buildings housing civilians.

Grim memorial

For years, Ms Shimoni has dedicated herself to building cultural bridges between Arabs and Israelis.

But in 1997, seven young Israeli girls on a school trip close to her home were shot and killed by a Jordanian soldier.

She says that her hope for peace between Israel and the Arabs foundered a long time ago.

"Before my son died, before the start of the second intifada [second Palestinian uprising], before Hezbollah attacked us, I was optimistic that we could all live in peace like in Switzerland. But now my outlook is less naïve and a lot darker."

Following her son's death, Mrs Shimona began fundraising for a memorial called Eyal's House - a $5m sports and culture centre, comprising three swimming pools, a dance studio, a gym and an auditorium located on the kibbutz's grounds.

The project designed to bring able-bodied people together with the handicapped is almost complete. But Mrs Shimona still needs to raise money for the memorial hall that will commemorate all the Israeli soldiers that have died in Lebanon.

For now, it is a concrete shell, half-finished as war rages in Lebanon again.

Mrs Shimona says the memorial is grimly fitting.

"I think I will need more space to put the names of the soldiers who died in Lebanon this time around," she says.