Christian villages were neutral in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. That didn’t save them.

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon —  

For much of the last year, as Hezbollah and Israel traded blows in an escalating tit-for-tat, the predominantly Christian village of Ain Ebel remained mostly out of the crossfire: Hezbollah cadres didn’t use the village as staging ground for attacks, and Israeli warplanes and artillery avoided striking it.

And while Hezbollah-aligned parts of southern Lebanon emptied of residents as the violence increased, many Christians in Ain Ebel and other mixed-religion towns and villages in the region stayed put. 

That changed this week when Israel began its ground invasion. About 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to Ain Ebel Mayor Imad Lallous, calls started coming in to residents from the Israeli military, telling them they should evacuate immediately and not return until further notice.

“They told me, as the mayor, I should inform everyone to leave. But we have nothing to do with the fighting, we don’t have any political parties here, no Hezbollah, nothing,” Lallous said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Hours later, an evacuation order came on social media for more than 20 towns and villages, including Ain Ebel.

Much of Lebanon’s south falls under the de facto rule of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite paramilitary faction and political party that the U.S. and Israel deem a terrorist organization. The Shiite majority in the area champion Hezbollah, crediting it for ending Israel’s 18-year occupation in 2000. 

But scattered across this region’s tree-covered mountains, tobacco fields and orchards of apples and figs are predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze towns and villages — most of which are at best ambivalent toward Hezbollah.

Many insisted on neutrality when the Iran-backed group began launching rockets across the border into Israel last year on Oct. 8, a day after allied, Gaza-based Hamas militants attacked southern Israel. 

That neutrality has not spared those communities in recent weeks, as Israel has ramped up its assault on Hezbollah with thousands of airstrikes on wide swaths of the country and now a ground incursion.Israel says it’s attacking Hezbollah positions, arms caches and infrastructure scattered all over Lebanon’s south. It also accuses Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields, an allegation the group denies. 

On Monday, an Israeli strike hit Ibl al-Saqi, another Christian village on the border, wounding the priest there along with several others. The day before that, two missiles knocked down a pair of residential towers in the mixed Muslim-Christian village of Ein al Delb near Sidon, killing 45 people and wounding 58 others, authorities said. 

A tally of casualties issued by the Lebanese Health Ministry since Israel began its escalated assault on Hezbollah in September puts the death toll at more than 1,300; it’s unclear how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters, but the toll includes hundreds of women and children, the ministry said.That’s why Lallous didn’t consider ignoring the Israeli order. “I couldn’t take the risk,” he said.

By nighttime Tuesday, the village of Ain Ebel was almost completely deserted, with only a handful of residents staying behind while the others fled to a monastery in the nearby Christian village of Rmeish.

“Why did they tell us to leave? I don’t know. I’m as confused as anyone about this,” Lallous said, a note of exasperation in his voice.

As it stands, it was just in time, said Father George Al-Amil, a Maronite priest in Ain Ebel. At 4 a.m. Wednesday, a missile hit a house in the village. 

“It was empty and its residents are anyway not in the country,” he said, speaking from Rmeish.