The “Peace Generations Organization for Demining”, owned by Hezbollah, is apparently a disguise for Hezbollah’s “human shield” tactic!

Executive Summary
The explosion in Ain Qana on September 22 shined the spotlight on the “Peace Generations Organization for Demining”, a civilian organization owned by Hezbollah, which, until now, was less known than other civilian organizations owned by Hezbollah. Hezbollah established it in 2008 with the sponsorship of “Immen Sazan Omran Pars”, a private Iranian company that we believe operates with the patronage of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Forces (IRGC), as part of the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Our assessment is that the explosion exposed one of the organization’s secret goals – to disguise Hezbol- lah’s “human shield” tactic in south Lebanon (the use of civilian buildings in the heart of villages for storing weapons and as launch sites for missiles and rockets).

Immediately after the explosion, all comments made by authorities close to or affiliated with Hezbollah stuck to the same story – that the building that exploded was used to store mines and unexploded ord- nances belonging to the Peace Generations Organization for Demining. We believe that this cover story was concocted beforehand to explain the unforeseen explosion in the weapons depot and in Hezbollah’s operational launch sites spread out in south Lebanon’s urban territory.

This assessment is reinforced after examining past events as well. In both incidents of explosions of Hez- bollah ammunition depots, the first in the village Khirbet Salem (July 14th, 2009), and the second in Tair Filsay (October 12, 2009), the immediate response of Hezbollah authorities was stating that the explosion was caused by old ammunition collected after the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

If the organization’s objective is in fact demining and neutralizing the threat to innocent civilian passerby of mines and unexploded ordnances scattered in the field, why then does the organization store these mines and explosives inside a civilian building in the heart of a residential area? The organization’s be- havioral pattern seems illogical: on one hand, it neutralizes threats to civilians and distances them from them, and on the other hand it brings those same threats to the civilians’ doorstep. Moreover, a Hezbollah operative was killed in the blast, and after attempts at hiding the incident, Hezbollah publicly announced his death 5 days after the explosion and the operative’s funeral in the village a-Zararia in south Lebanon.

Note that there were many rumors on social media of injured and casualties in an explosion that were denied by Hezbollah. In addition, Hezbollah did not allow government authorities access to the site of the explosion by sealing off the area.

Following the initial responses of Hezbollah officials to the explosion (the cover story), widespread cam- paigns were launched with the goal of giving the impression that the entire population supporting Hez- bollah agrees with and consents to the “human shield” tactic, thus diverting attention away from the pre- cise location of the blast (that can expose Hezbollah’s operational activity and harm Hezbollah) towards talk that is general and supportive.

The campaigns seemed like an orchestrated war on the public’s awareness. As a rule, this war’s objective is to strengthen the narrative and neutralize the dialogue of public awareness that can harm Hezbollah’s operational activity.

The aforementioned circumstances (the past and present cover story, the organization’s illogical behavior, the Hezbollah operative’s death, and the war on awareness) only reinforce our assessment that Hezbollah’s use of the organization’s name and reputation and even its use of the organization’s facilities are a disguise for Hezbollah’s weapon and launch array spread out in south Lebanon as part of its “human shield” tactic, in which Hezbollah uses civilian buildings located in the hearts of villages for storing weapons and for launching rockets and missiles.