Recently, Hezbollah has taken two steps to strengthen its influence among the Shiite population and to strengthen and establish its support among that population. Hezbollah’s campaign, tagged on social media under the headline “Hezbollah alongside the people,” dealt with two main issues:
The first is a call to join the “Mutual Aid Fund for Health and Social Services” belonging to Hezbollah. The fund subsidizes medical services for those who are insured with any insurance entity, and especially for those who are not insured at all. The subsidy funds up to 100% in hospitalization and surgery, up to 70% in doctor’s examinations, and up to 50% in medications, imaging tests, and dental treatments.
The second and central issue among them is the transfer of a huge amount of diesel fuel for heating to the residents of the Baalbek-Hermel, and Beqaa districts, for free. This involves the transfer of 3.5 million liters (over 924,600 gallons) of diesel to 20,000 families in Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel, in addition to the transfer of 216,000 liters (over 57,060 gallons) of diesel to 920 families in western Bekaa. The diesel was distributed in three days.
As usual, Hezbollah, along with physical activity, is also combining an extensive awareness campaign and has begun an extensive tagging campaign #Hezbollah_ alongside_the_people, which reached 13,000 tags in about 12 hours. In the awareness campaign activity, Hezbollah does not distinguish between civilian and military activity and uses both in this way of action.
Assuming an equal distribution, the average is 175 liters per family in Bekaa / Baalbach-Elharmel and 235 liters per family in western Bekaa. In total, this is 3,716,000 liters, which should be enough for a month.
According to an official publication of the “Alamana” gas station chain of the martyr’s institution on January 13th, the price of a 20-liter diesel tank is 19,200 Lebanese pounds, which is 960 pounds per liter of diesel.
At that rate, the value in Lebanese pounds of diesel distributed by Hezbollah is 3,567,360,000, which according to the conversion rate on the morning of January 18th is equal to $ 2,366,407.
The state of Hezbollah cares for its residents… but what about the residents of the Lebanese state within the state of Hezbollah ??
From a review of social networks, it is easy to understand what the purpose and target audience of these Hezbollah moves are:
“Those who gamble on fulfilling the will of their American master may be angry at any move that helps the loyalists of the martyrs, the deprived and the poor. Iran and its ally, of which it is proud and whose decision it trusts, are thwarting plans for takeover and humiliation. Those who like to be spies, go crazy from the sight of the firm standing. It’s not that #Hezbollah_sides_with_the_people, Hezbollah is the people!” (from https://twitter.com/sheikhhusseinzd/status/1350894321424343041)
Hezbollah’s sectorial civic actions in general and aiding in cold weather damage, in particular, are nothing new and have been done for years, in accordance with Hezbollah’s capability.
However, it seems that this time the timing of this action is important to Hezbollah, especially in light of the economic situation in Lebanon and in light of its desire to preserve the “social environment” on which it is based, “social environment”, which Hezbollah claims “the enemy is trying to dismantle and harm.”
