The Deadliest Day in Lebanon in Decades

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, 30 Sep 2024

The Wire | Jewish Voice for Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service

A site targeted by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon on 23 Sep 2024.
Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images

25 Sep 2024 – Monday [23 Sep] was the deadliest day in Lebanon in decades.

In a single day, Israeli strikes in Beirut and across south Lebanon killed over 500 people, including at least 50 children, with countless more buried under the rubble. Tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes as the death toll continues to rise.

We’ve seen this before. Nearly a year into the genocide in Gaza, Israel’s fanatical government is barreling towards the total decimation and ethnic cleansing of south Lebanon. Beirut is not Gaza — but in a matter of days, entire neighborhoods have already been destroyed.

The Pager Attacks Were the Beginning

Last week, pagers and walkie talkies were detonated across Lebanon, killing at least 70 and maiming thousands of people.

Only a few days after the attacks, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes, killing over 500 people in a single day — one of the highest daily death tolls of any war in recent history — and injuring another 1,600.

This was intentional: The pager and walkie talkie attacks were undoubtedly meant to exhaust Lebanon’s emergency services and overwhelm its hospitals right before the Israeli government’s bombardment of south Lebanon commenced.

Between the massive explosion at the port of Beirut in 2020 and years of severe economic turmoil, Lebanon was already a country teetering on the brink of collapse. Now, still reeling from the pager attacks, Lebanon’s hospitals are too overwhelmed to cope with the Israeli military’s assault.

Since then, hundreds of people have been killed and thousands injured as tens of thousands of Lebanese flee the south. They were expelled from communities which have already witnessed mass displacement in the last 11 months as a result of repeated Israeli attacks.

Those fleeing Israel’s bombardment have nowhere to go: There aren’t bomb shelters, and Lebanese schools don’t have enough resources to house tens of thousands of people. Instead, people across Beirut are opening their homes to the displaced.

We’ve Seen This Before

For the last year, the U.S. has sent billions of dollars worth of weapons and military funding to the Israeli military while it slaughtered and starved Palestinians. More emboldened than ever, Israel is now gearing up for a repeat of Gaza in Lebanon.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel’s “war” is with Hezbollah, not the Lebanese people. That claim comes in stark contrast with what Israeli Cabinet Minister Amichai Chikli wrote on X over the weekend: that Lebanon “does not meet the definition of a country,” and that Israel should create a buffer zone in South Lebanon — one “free” of the “Shi’a enemy population.”

Early on Monday, residents of parts of Beirut and in villages in the south received text messages and phone calls ordering them to flee “Hezbollah strongholds.” These mass expulsion orders aren’t about minimizing harm to civilians, because the Israeli government isn’t interested in sparing civilians’ lives. This is psychological warfare. For Palestinians and Lebanese, the message is clear: The Israeli government knows exactly where you are, and it can kill you at any time.

In just a few days, entire blocks have already been reduced to rubble and tens of thousands have fled their homes. If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because this is exactly how the genocide in Gaza began.

This Is Where Impunity Leads

Israel’s genocidal, apartheid regime has been allowed to kill Palestinians, Lebanese, and other people in the region with impunity for decades.

Now, even as Israel’s brutal assault in Lebanon threatens to drag the entire region into war, Netanyahu is dodging accountability. The U.S. government has tacitly endorsed Israel’s nonsensical “strategy” of de-escalation through escalation: a thinly veiled ruse to justify its war of annihilation against the people of south Lebanon.

Instead of doing anything to hold Netanyahu’s feet to the fire to force a ceasefire in Gaza — something the Biden administration claims it wants — the U.S. is sending more troops to the region in anticipation of a wider war.

It is precisely because of this climate of impunity that the Israeli government is as emboldened as it is today. It is because of U.S. support that Israel has been able to commit genocide in Gaza for 11 months, and if the Israeli government invades Lebanon, it will do so using U.S. weapons. The only way to end the genocide in Gaza and prevent that genocide from being expanded to Lebanon is for the U.S. to stop arming Israel.

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