All countries have different ways of commemorating their battles. From memorials to museums, part of moving on from war is defining the narrative surrounding it. That was Hezbollah's logic, at least, in opening a "tourist complex" in May 2010, displaying its own weapons and those left behind by Israel after the country's pullout from south Lebanon in 2000. "Armies that emerge victorious from wars display their exploits in museums," Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech inaugurating the complex.
Hezbollah, which means "the party of God" in Arabic, was founded in 1982 as a Shiite militia opposed to Israel's invasion of Lebanon and has since become one of Lebanon's most powerful political organizations, controlling much of southern Lebanon, including Mleeta, the site of the complex. Mleeta was a Hezbollah command center during the 1978-1990 occupation of south Lebanon and the 2006 war.
Above, visitors walk past the wreckage of an Israeli tank at the tourist complex on May 21, 2010.
The international press has dubbed the Mleeta complex Hezbollah's "Disneyland." It reportedly cost $4 million to build and attracted over 130,000 visitors in the first 10 days after its opening.
Above, a radio-controlled rocket is displayed at the complex.
Visitors look at destroyed Israeli tanks displayed at Mleeta. This area of the museum is known as "the Abyss," described by Andrew Tabler in as, "a pit filled with Israeli helmets, boots, cluster bombs, and overturned military vehicles. At the center of the display is an Israeli Merkava-4 tank, with its gun turret tied in a knot."
A mannequin depicting a Hezbollah militant during a military operation. The museum's website describes the site as, "a terrestrial and sub-terrestrial museum aimed at closely identifying the unique experience of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon against the Israeli enemy from the beginning of the occupation of Lebanon's capitol, Beirut, in 1982."
Lebanese boys walk past weapons left behind in Lebanon by Israeli forces. As Tabler wrote in July, "Since the end of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Hezbollah's decision to hang back and replenish its weapons caches, aided by the presence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the south, has resulted in the calmest period along the Lebanese-Israeli border in decades."
An anti-aircraft machine gun.
A picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hangs on the wall in an underground field operations room at the complex. Hezbollah built a startlingly complex bunker system along the border with Israel. As Nicholas Blanford wrote in , "Before the war, no one had imagined that Hezbollah was installing such an extravagant military infrastructure in the border district. Their visible activities generally consisted of establishing a number of observation posts along the Blue Line that eventually reached between twenty-five and thirty, stretching from the chalk cliffs of Ras Naqoura on the coast in the west to the lofty limestone mountains of the Shebaa Farms in the east."
Pictures of Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (left), Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (second from left), and slain Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Mussawi (back) hang on the walls of an underground tunnel at the complex.
A "Raad" rocket which was used by Lebanon's Hezbollah the 2006 war with Israel.The name means "Thunder" in Persian.
A multi-rocket launcher on display.
The helmets of Israeli soldiers killed while fighting Hezbollah militants are displayed next to a tombstone bearing the Star of David.
An 82-mm mortar launcher.
A general view of the complex. Mleeta takes its name from the hill on which it was built.
The complex from above.
