Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited sites in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel on Thursday, one day after he received a hero’s welcome in Beirut.

Residents of southern Lebanon closed their shops, schools, and offices to greet Ahmadinejad at Bint Jbeil stadium.
Bint Jbeil, just four kilometers from the border with Israel, is called ""the capital of resistance"" because it was a center for Hezbollah guerrilla action against Israel during the Zionist regime’s 18-year occupation of part of southern Lebanon, from 1982 to 2000.
The overjoyed well-wishers waved Iranian and Hezbollah flags. At the main gate of Bint Jbeil, a giant banner read ""welcome"" in Persian and Arabic.
Signs on billboards and banners said: ""The south welcomes the protector of the resistance.""
Some mothers held up photos of their sons who had been killed in Israel’s wars against Lebanon.
According to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, the special representatives of the Lebanese president, prime minister, and parliament speaker accompanied Ahmadinejad to southern Lebanon.
The villages of Bint Jbeil and Maroun al-Ras were at the heart of the fighting in the 2006 war between Hezbollah and the Zionist regime, a war which shattered the myth of invincibility of the Israeli army.
The Iranian president’s visit to southern Lebanon was a sign of the Islamic Republic’s principled policy of providing moral support to the Lebanese and Palestinian nations, who have been resisting the Israeli occupation of their homelands.
Political analysts have interpreted Ahmadinejad’s visit to southern Lebanon as a political defeat for Israel.
Friday prayer leaders across Iran praised Ahmadinejad’s visit to southern Lebanon. They also said the great welcome the Lebanese people gave to Ahmadinejad showed that Muslim nations love Iran.
Zionists have no alternative but to surrender
Addressing people in Bint Jbeil, Ahmadinejad said the world should know the Zionists invaded Lebanon in the past in order to destroy the resistance movement but they could not achieve their goal, and “returned to the occupied lands (Palestine).”
He asked, “If the Lebanese people had not resisted, where would Lebanon’s border with the Zionist regime be?”
He went on to say that the Zionists have no alternative but to surrender and return to where they came from.
No power can overcome Lebanon’s resistance, Ahmadinejad said, adding that Lebanon is a model of resistance for all regional nations.
Resistance is the key to the victory of Iran and other regional nations, he stated.
Qana is a symbol of resistance
Ahmadinejad also visited the village of Qana on Thursday, where he said the village is living proof of the Lebanese people’s resistance, patience, and faith.
Qana, a village in southern Lebanon, was the site of a terrible massacre on April 18, 1996, when the Israelis used artillery to shell a UN compound. Of the 800 Lebanese civilians who had taken refuge in the compound to escape the fighting, 106 were killed and around 116 injured, many of them children.
“You are the winner and the enemy is the loser, and you will remain and the enemy is on the verge of collapse. On behalf of the Iranian nation, I congratulate you on your resistance, patience, and faith,” he told people in Qana.
“The Iranian people and the Leader of the (Islamic) Revolution will be on the side of the people of Qana and Lebanon forever,” he stated.
People in the West hate Zionists
Addressing tens of thousands of people in southern Beirut late on Wednesday, President Ahmadinejad said, “People in the West hate the Zionist thinking, and if there was no repression, (they) would express their views with a loud voice in the media and the streets.”
Ahmadinejad told the crowd that his visit to Lebanon and meetings with Lebanese officials and people was a “sweet dream” for him.
“I have come (to Lebanon) to convey the warmest greetings of the Iranian people and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution to you,” he told cheering supporters, some of whom waved Iranian flags.
Ahmadinejad also said Israel would pay a price for any aggression against Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader meets Ahmadinejad
During the last hours of his Lebanon visit, President Ahmadinejad held talks with Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah late on Thursday.
The two discussed regional developments as well as the Iranian president’s visit to Lebanon.
Nasrallah also gave Ahmadinejad a rifle captured from the Israelis during the 33-day war in 2006.