Correction: An earlier version of this article said that an Israeli civilian woman was killed, but the woman was an Israeli soldier .
Nine Lebanese civilians were killed and a substantial number of others were wounded as an escalation of strikes was carried out by both sides across the border. Hezbollah was presumed to be carrying out the rocket fire on Israel Wednesday morning, but unlike most recent salvos, they did not formally announce it by the time of Israel’s retaliation.
Israel, which has been talking up an offensive against Lebanon, responded, terming today’s strikes an “extensive wave of attacks,” hitting mostly towns in southern Lebanon. Israeli attacks on Soueneh killed a mother and her two children. All told, Lebanese hospital officials said nine civilians, including four children, were slain in a handful of towns. Four Hezbollah members were also reported killed.
The attacks against Israel focused on military bases in Safed, though a building in the city itself was hit by rockets, killing a female soldier and wounding eight others. The wounded were taken to the local hospital, and it was reported rockets landed sort of near the hospital, though no casualties were claimed. Israel said their attack on Lebanon was against the source of the rocket fire.
The two sides have been trading fire off and on for months, but today marked an escalation from both as more and more targets were being hit, even as the international community struggled to try to come up with a ceasefire agreement to end fighting on the northern Israel border.
France was keen to offer a deal in which Hezbollah would be moved around 10 km away from the border. Reportedly they would be replaced in the area by the Lebanese military, though it isn’t clear how Lebanon feels about placing its forces in a potential line of fire.
Even if Lebanon, eager to prevent another war with Israel, would be agreeable to the proposal, Hezbollah is insisting they are also holding out for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip before ending their fire on Israel. With the open-ended Gaza War still relatively popular in Israel, that seems a non-starter.
Israeli military sources have talked up their readiness for an outright offensive against Lebanon, and have sought to downplay repeated warnings, from both Israeli thinktanks and US military intelligence, that opening a second front risks putting Israel at a substantial disadvantage.
The fighting in the north has forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee deeper into the country, and the military says the primary war goal would be to allow them to return home. Other politicians have advocated a military occupation of much of the Lebanese border region, which, however, risks another open-ended war that would leave the northern Israeli towns under open-ended siege.
When WWIII starts, it will be tit for tat H bombing cities? That’s how it works today, doesn’t it?
No, more likely a “spasm” attack. The world is gone in 30 minutes.
My gut feeling is that civilization is in deep.shit with no way out
“No way out.”
Yes, but. It will be over. It will find a way. But it won’t be any way that anyone will like.
WW2 had a way out. The entire world was wrecked, except only for the US and Canada. Still, it was a “way out,” just not one anyone would have chosen.
Let me follow that thought. I got nothing better to do.
Is it like the male mantis ejaculating with its head cut off???
Yes. The spasm attack response is executing “deterrence.” It is how one deters an attempted decapitation/disarming attack. The remaining/surviving nuclear weapons are enough to wipe out the one which launched that initial attack, and will be used to do so. That is supposed to deter the first strike.
Of course, if the threat/plan meant to deter does not deter, then the headless mantis does its thing.
Once a nuke is used, then we are in the realm of panic over response and/or deterrence run amok.
My repeated use of “/” in this discussion is because this is all theory, “smart” people talking to themselves and sometimes each other, very likely getting so complex they left reality far behind. However, it does come down anyway to go/no go, with spasm the “go” response.
At this point you’ve got to laugh at the headlines on this website.
Hezbollah could apply the Israeli rule, and now kill 90 Israeli civilians in response to killing of 9. Land of the blind, but it is the only way to stop Israel’s killing spree.
Israel is nicer than Hezbollah. At least when they kill civilians they use “SMART BOMBS.” Doesn’t that count for anything?
Maybe half are smart, but no smarter than drones. There is calculate, carefully aimed intent behind all of the killing on both sides, and reckless wanton murder as the intent of whatever is not so carefully aimed.
So that is solution to the problem. Kill more Israelis. What can go wrong with that plan?
No, what he’s saying is that Israeli citizens are fair game. You can’t claim you can kill civilians because they support their government/militia and not expect for your citizens that support your government/militia to be fair game also. I would imagine withholding aid that could starve 400,000 people to death should be acceptable by the Israeli government also, if the tables happen to get turned.
Land of the blind, as I said. It would go wrong.
But, the Israeli public that supports genocide by 94% does fully deserve what Germany got by 1945. If they keep going, they’ll get it too.
We can’t know how, but there are too many people and too many nukes in the world to imagine everything will remain under control once vast killing is started by one murderous, monstrous people. (That is the Israeli state, now gleefully commiting genocide and pretending to itself and Joe Biden that it is not, but convincing nobody, not even itself or Joe Biden.)
How? We can’t be sure of course, but a very likely scenario is something like an enraged true believer gets hold of a nuke from Pakistan (“the Muslim Bomb”) or North Korea or somewhere else (South Africa “got rid” of its nukes merely by separating the parts and keeping all the parts in storage inside South Africa) (or Iran could be further along or Turkey could “allow” theft of a US bomb from Incirlik). Then it would be used to do something like kill Tel Aviv, or the main Israeli port, or NYC (lots of American Jews).
They can never return home until a potential ceasefire with Hamas…!
The strike tock out Ali Muhammad al-Debes, a major leader of Hezbollah.