BEIRUT, (PIC)
From Gaza to Lebanon, the Israeli occupation is replicating the scenario of massacres, fire zones, and fabricated propaganda, transferring its strategy of failure in confronting resistance and the aspirations of peoples yearning for freedom.
One of the most intense airstrikes in contemporary wars was carried out by Israel on Monday, targeting areas in Lebanon, according to The New York Times. The occupying army, which continues to threaten and issue warnings to Lebanon, claimed to have struck more than 1,600 targets in Lebanon on Monday, a figure that has no precedent in the 21st-century wars, according to Emily Tripp, director of the British organization Airwars, which monitors conflicts.
The Chief of Staff of the occupying army, Herzi Halevi, continues to threaten to escalate operations throughout Lebanon, vowing to intensify actions with full force, a sentiment echoed by other Israeli officials, mirroring the same scene in the ongoing war in Gaza.
Weak pretexts
As soon as the intensive airstrikes on Lebanon began, Israel started fabricating excuses to justify its barbaric bombardment of civilians, similar to what occurred in the Gaza Strip. The occupying army used a video, edited to show a house in southern Lebanon containing a cruise missile, as justification for the extensive bombing campaign on civilians. This recalled a similar video from the Shifa Medical Complex, where Israel attempted to portray the complex to the world as a command-and-control center belonging to Hamas and a weapons and missile storage facility, using it as a pretext for a two-phase assault that ended with the complete destruction of the complex.
These claims and weak justifications have been exposed as falsehoods, as Israel has provided no evidence and has failed to substantiate what it promoted to the entire world, a fact confirmed by independent global reports. Israel has also promoted claims that Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, the same lie it employed during its ongoing aggression against Gaza, a false justification for legitimizing the killing of civilians, while all testimonies indicate that the occupation itself uses civilians as human shields.
Targeting medical staff
In the escalating aggression against Lebanon, medical teams have become targets of the Zionist war machine, with Israel killing four medical personnel and targeting ambulances in southern Lebanon, while warplanes struck near the Italian Hospital in the city of Tyre. This aggression has repeated itself against hospitals and health institutions in Gaza, where no hospital has escaped the brutality and terrorism of the Zionist forces. Israel has rendered most hospitals inoperable after destroying them and has killed 885 healthcare workers, arresting dozens more.
Displacement
In its escalating war against Lebanon, Israel has employed the weapon of forced displacement of civilians as a means to pressure the resistance, a tactic it has also used in its ongoing war in Gaza. Reports indicate that half a million Lebanese have been displaced from their homes, fleeing the bombardment of the Zionist forces, while two million Palestinians have been displaced since the war began in Gaza.
In recent days, a prominent scene has been the widespread displacement of families from southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley to northern Litani. Similar to Gaza, schools have been converted into shelters, and people have begun to flock to areas they believe to be safer.
On Monday morning, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari appeared in a scene reminiscent of his statements in Gaza, urging people to evacuate towns in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa “before 2,000-pound bombs are dropped on their homes, schools, and neighborhoods.” During the current war on Gaza, reports indicate that up to 84% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, some multiple times.
The mayor of Sidon, Hazem Khadr Badi, stated that 10,000 displaced individuals from southern Lebanon spent the night in the city, with 6,000 in urban areas. He added that the number of schools opened as shelters has increased from four to “about 16.”
The National News Agency of Lebanon quoted Badi as saying that international organizations need to “urgently lend a hand and provide essential supplies for the displaced, especially as several schools require maintenance and need potable water, electricity, and other necessities.”
Massacres and fire zones
Just as in the Gaza war, Israel is committing thousands of massacres and following a policy of fire zones, transferring the same tactics to Lebanon by executing horrific massacres against civilians and destroying homes over the heads of the residents.
Israel has also adopted a policy of intense fire zones, striking hundreds of targets in a short time and in a longitudinal manner, resulting in enormous explosions and widespread destruction, as well as killing and injuring hundreds. Over the course of a single day of unprecedented violent bombardment, 558 people were martyred in large-scale massacres, and dozens of homes were destroyed.
Psychological warfare
Since the beginning of the escalating aggression in Lebanon, Israeli intelligence agencies have been broadcasting a massive amount of false and targeted news aimed at destroying the morale of the Lebanese people.
The occupying army claimed that its intense airstrikes on Lebanon have set Hezbollah back 20 years, echoing the lies it used when it announced the dismantling of Hamas battalions one after another. However, the reality on the ground contradicts this, as the resistance in Gaza continues to confront the occupation and ambush its soldiers effectively.
Additionally, the occupation has deliberately broadcast inciting messages and random evacuation orders via radio waves, similar to what occurred in the Gaza Strip, where residents receive thousands of calls urging them to abandon the resistance leadership and encouraging random evacuations to strike at the home front.
Targeting infrastructure
In the ongoing war on Gaza, Israel has completely destroyed the infrastructure in an attempt to roll back the Gaza Strip by decades. Israel threatens Lebanon with a return to the Stone Age, and reports have revealed Israeli rejection of American demands to avoid targeting infrastructure in Lebanon.
Another failure
In this context, a report from The Guardian stated that Netanyahu’s deadly bombs and the Israeli assault on southern Lebanon “will not succeed.” The report suggested that Netanyahu must be removed, as the truth has become clearer than ever: the Israeli leader needs perpetual wars to remain in power.
According to the report, the horror unfolding in Lebanon constitutes an additional crime among others, with Netanyahu turning southern Lebanon, and possibly the entire country, into what resembles a second Gaza. It added that Israel’s attack on Lebanon did not succeed in 2006 and will not succeed now, and that Netanyahu’s strategy, as always, defeats itself.
Despite the Israeli airstrikes, Hezbollah continued to launch rockets more than ever at Israel, expanding their range, while displaced Israelis cannot return safely, which is ostensibly Netanyahu’s main goal.
The report concluded that last week’s attacks on communication devices and the assassination of key leaders are just the beginning, and that “endless war” is the only policy that keeps Netanyahu in office and in power.
Failure in Gaza, failure in Lebanon
Writer Amal Shahada stated that Israel has intensified its fighting and launched plans based on the equation: “increasing combat applies pressure to fulfill Israeli demands.” This is what Israel previously used against Hamas in Gaza when it announced that intensifying combat and pursuing Hamas leaders would subdue them and push them toward a prisoner exchange deal under Israeli conditions, including the army remaining in the Philadelphi Corridor.
In her article for The Independent, she added that this equation, which failed in Gaza, is being implemented by Israel today in Lebanon through its intensive operations launched on Monday, which expanded to include wide civilian areas. Israel aims to intensify pressure on Hezbollah, which is expected to continue for days, according to security officials, until the first phase of the army’s plan is achieved: returning northern residents to their homes.
She continued that despite its adherence to this equation, Israel, following widespread criticism after withdrawing from several areas of Gaza only to return while Hamas had reinforced its capabilities, wants this time in Lebanon to extend the fighting, no matter how long it takes, and to eliminate Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and weapon stockpiles.
Shahada noted that with the year since the October 7, 2023 attack passing without Israel achieving a single one of its declared goals, this reflects the policy adopted by the Israeli government following the Al-Aqsa Flood attack, which is based on ensuring the continuity of the ruling coalition and Netanyahu’s personal interests.
The writer emphasized that according to this logic, Israel has operated for nearly a year without a strategic plan that includes a timeline for fighting and the day after, and now it enters its war on Lebanon without a strategic plan to achieve the goal of returning residents to their homes and eliminating Hezbollah’s capabilities.
Strategy of extermination
Political researcher Mohammed Abu Leila stated that the Zionist strategy of killing, displacement, siege, denial of rights, arrest, extermination, and massacres has been dominant throughout historical conflicts, since the establishment of this temporary entity to the present day. This strategy is ingrained in the mindset of the Zionist leadership that has taken control of political decision-making.
Abu Leila added in a statement to our correspondent that this criminal mentality is characteristic of all Zionist leaders who have committed heinous crimes against the peoples of the region, especially the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples.
He pointed out that this “criminal Zionist mentality has carried out thousands of massacres against the Palestinian people in Gaza recently, specifically since October 7, 2023, and this mentality, which has executed genocide against our Palestinian people in one of the most horrific violations of humanity in ancient and modern history, is now being transferred to Lebanon.”
He affirmed that the strategy and mentality led by Netanyahu, Gallant, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich are based on extermination, displacement, killing, and destruction.
Abu Leila spoke with numbers, stating that in the July 2006 war, 1,300 Lebanese martyrs were killed in a war that lasted 33 days, and currently, on the first day of Israeli aircraft bombing of Lebanese territory, approximately 550 martyrs were reported, according to figures released by the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
He emphasized that this reflects the “criminal mentality adopted by the Zionist enemy in this round of the war.”
