Lebanon’s death warrant signed on Oct. 7, and we have been updating the obituary ever since

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Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 3, 2024. (AP)
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Smoke rises from buildings hit in an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs on October 3, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 07 October 2024
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Lebanon’s death warrant signed on Oct. 7, and we have been updating the obituary ever since

  • Lebanon being drawn into someone else’s catastrophe
  • Hezbollah’s ‘hubris’ and unilateral actions are to blame

LONDON: How does one write a feature looking through Lebanon’s year without it sounding like an obituary?

Across Lebanon and wherever in the world citizens found themselves on Oct. 7 last year, phones buzzed and lit up with notifications of the seemingly unbelievable news.

Hamas, the insurgent militant group that had been running the Palestinian enclave of Gaza since 2007, had launched a surprise attack on Israel.

At first, near disbelief. Could it possibly be true?

Israel had long boasted about the impregnable nature of its “Iron Wall,” the high-tech, 7-meter-tall fence surrounding Gaza.

Bristling with cameras, watch towers, robotic machine guns, razor wire, radar and underground sensors, it was designed precisely to prevent exactly such an incursion.

Yet with every fresh ping, with every update flashing on smartphones, the unthinkable became increasingly possible, then probable and, finally, certain.

Hamas, relying on a combination of brute force and ingenuity — bulldozers smashed through the fence and drones dropped explosives on watch towers, knocking out the remotely operated machine guns — had broken through the Iron Wall in as many as 30 places.

More than 1,200 Israelis and others were killed, and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Hearts sank. All Lebanese knew full well that Lebanon was never not going to get involved, whether its citizens wanted to or not.

Past is prologue, and Lebanon’s history is riddled with sudden yanks into conflicts in which it has no business being involved.

From Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in response to Palestinian militants using the country’s south as a launching pad for missiles and attacks, to the 2006 war between Iran-backed group Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanese citizens have always found themselves caught in the crossfire.

Their dead, wounded, ruined homes and countless devastated lives are written off by all sides as collateral damage.

Now, one year on since the start of Hamas’ assault on Israel and the latter’s devastating response in Gaza — which has claimed in excess of 40,000 Palestinian lives, including more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children — once again Lebanon is being sucked into someone else’s catastrophe.

It all seemed depressingly inevitable from the outset, when the day after the Hamas attack its ally Hezbollah began exchanging fire with Israel over Lebanon’s southern border.

Since then, Lebanon has suffered immense damage, especially in its southern villages and towns, which have been repeatedly and indiscriminately pounded by Israeli jets targeting Hezbollah outposts.

Nearly 1 million Lebanese have been displaced internally, 1,974 have been killed including 127 children, and 9,384 wounded, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The situation began to deteriorate alarmingly on Sept. 17, when thousands of Hezbollah pagers, sabotaged by Israeli agents, exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, killing a dozen people, including two children, and wounding thousands more.

The following day similarly sabotaged walkie-talkies detonated. This time 30 people died and hundreds more were injured. Now Israeli troops have invaded the south of Lebanon.

Lebanon has been in a spiral since 2019, when it was rocked by a disastrous and ongoing financial crisis that has seen the lira drastically devalued.

Since then further blows have included the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck Lebanon in early 2020, and the devastating Beirut Port explosion later that year that rocked the capital and destroyed thousands of structures.

To make matters worse, political paralysis has left Lebanon without a president or an effective government for the past two years.

In a statement issued on Oct. 31, 2023, the first anniversary of Lebanon’s presidential vacancy, the US State Department accused the country’s “divided parliamentarians” of “putting their personal ambitions ahead of the interests of their country.”

Issued just over three weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel, the statement added presciently: “Even as rising tensions along Lebanon’s southern border threaten the country’s stability and the economic crisis deepens, the Lebanese people are deprived of leadership when they need it most.”

Around the world, since Oct. 7, Lebanese have been glued to their screens, holding their breath with each missile fired across the border in either direction.

And listening with growing anxiety to the pronouncements of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the fiery speeches of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah’s death in an Israeli air strike on Beirut on Sept. 27 killed at least five other people and injured dozens more.

For the Lebanese in Lebanon and abroad, every day begins with a recap of the destruction and a counting of the dead, injured and missing. Every day ends with evacuation drills across areas of the capital targeted by Israeli bombs and missiles.

Today, as before, they are helpless bystanders, witnesses to the destruction of their country and the loss of the lives of their friends and family members.

As Michael Young of the Malcom H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center wrote late last month, “the opening of a front in the south on Oct. 8, 2023, was the final straw. Hezbollah consulted none of its Lebanese partners in initiating a war in defense of its ally Hamas in Gaza.”

Hezbollah, he added, “displayed remarkable hubris in being completely indifferent to the fact that Lebanon paid a heavy price in the past for the Palestinian cause — especially the Shia community itself.

“After hubris comes nemesis, however, and today Hezbollah is largely alone in facing the violent Israeli campaign against Lebanon.”

Perhaps. But for now, the war has seen Lebanon’s sectarian noose grow ever tighter.

Social media has become a parallel battleground, for the preaching of one side against the other, pitting blame based on religiosity and correlating silence with acquiescence.

The Lebanese have always reluctantly accepted that, in Lebanon, this is just the way things are.

It remains to be seen whether, in the wake of the current disaster engulfing the country, the Lebanese will finally abandon their passive acceptance of a cruel fate dictated by others.
 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

Updated 6 sec ago
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.

Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Updated 1 min 24 sec ago
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Updated 51 min 11 sec ago
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Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

  • The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
  • Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.


‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

Updated 08 November 2024
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‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

  • The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza

LONDON: There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in the area.
“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.


Israeli army claims discovery of ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

Updated 30 min 49 sec ago
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Israeli army claims discovery of ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

  • Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely
  • Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members”

BEIRUT: The Israeli army on Friday continued to destroy houses in Lebanon’s southern border villages to establish a buffer zone. The latest bombing targeted the areas of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in Bint Jbeil.
Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely.
In parallel with the deliberate destruction, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued “a new urgent warning to the residents of southern Lebanon,” instructing them “to refrain from returning to the south, or to their houses or olive fields,” describing the region as “a dangerous combat zone.”
Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members.”
The army will take the “necessary measures against any vehicle transporting armed members regardless of its type,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed that “surveillance cameras of the Oded Brigade reservists captured a Hezbollah training center just 200 meters from a UNIFIL outpost.”
The army claimed that “the forces discovered the training facility, which was used by Hezbollah for training, studying, and storing large quantities of weapons.”
It said that “the facility contained missile launchers used for firing at Israeli settlements, as well as documents and instructional books detailing Hezbollah’s operational methods, maps of Israel, explanations of the Israeli army’s equipment, and additional weapons.” The army said “the weapons were confiscated and the compound was dismantled.”
The Israeli army resumed raids on the Baalbek-Hermel area, killing and injuring people and causing further destruction.
The Ministerial Emergency Committee estimated that, as of Thursday evening, Israel had conducted 121 raids, including 56 on Nabatieh, 24 on Baalbek and 23 in the south.
The committee said the number of people killed so far in Israeli attacks on Lebanon exceed 3,100, while 14,000 people have been injured.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, with close to 200,000 staying in shelters, it added.
Lebanese observers believe this transitional phase, from now until US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, is the most dangerous period for Lebanon.
Raids on Kfar Tebnit killed two people after a building comprising residential apartments and commercial shops was destroyed.
A raid on Zebdine in Nabatieh killed Mohammed Fayez Mokaddam and his sons, Fayez and Hadi Mokaddem, after their building was destroyed.
Zaher Ibrahim Ataya, a medic with Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Committee from the southern town of Tair Harfa, was killed when Israeli forces struck a newly established medical center.
The strike was part of a broader Israeli aerial campaign that targeted more than 50 towns across the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts in the past 48 hours.
The Lebanese Red Cross chief Georges Kettaneh announced that rescue teams have returned to Wata Al-Khiyam to complete the recovery of victims from an incident on Oct. 27.
Working alongside UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Army, teams recovered four bodies and remains, with efforts continuing to ensure the mission’s completion.
Earlier the Red Cross retrieved 17 bodies from the site where civilians, who had been tending to livestock, sought shelter in a building during an Israeli incursion.
The Israeli military initially stalled permission for the Lebanese Red Cross to recover the victims, eventually granting only a four-hour window for the operation.
The Israeli air campaign extended to Lebanon’s Bekaa region, with strikes hitting Hrabta town west of Baalbek and Hosh Al-Sayyed Ali near the Syrian border north of Hermel.
Sirens sounded across northern Israel, including Haifa, Nazareth, Kiryat Shmona and surrounding areas, as well as the Ramat Trump settlement in the Golan Heights and Israeli media reported approximately 30 rockets launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel and Haifa’s suburbs.
The Israeli military confirmed detecting about 20 rockets, with some being intercepted, and reported drone incursions in northern airspace, including one near Caesarea.
The Israeli military announced the death of a soldier from Battalion 8207, Alon Brigade (228), who succumbed to wounds sustained in southern Lebanon on Oct. 26, while Israeli army radio detailed a fierce battle in the border village of Aitaroun that claimed the lives of six Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah said on Friday it had launched “dozens of rockets reaching as far as Haifa and south of Nazareth.”
The group claimed strikes on several targets, including the Stella Maris naval base and Ramat David air base, northwest and southeast of Haifa, respectively, Kiryat Shmona settlement, and military gatherings in Misgav Am and Margaliot settlements.
In response to Israeli infiltration attempts, Hezbollah reported targeting Israeli forces south of Adaisseh with artillery fire. The group also claimed to have destroyed a military bulldozer and inflicting casualties on accompanying infantry forces trying to advance northwest of Kfarkila.