While tensions are high on the Lebanon-Israel border right now, there are reports that recent visits by a US envoy made some progress with a roadmap based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the 2007 Israel-Lebanon war.
Nevertheless Israel has reportedly ratcheted down hopes for a truce by the March 15 deadline Tel Aviv set for launching a broad war against neighboring Lebanon.
Fighting along the border has been raging for months, with tens of thousands of residents displaced on both sides amid near-daily fire. At one point, Israel announced that returning residents to their homes was the primary incentive for the strikes.
More recently, however, Israel shifted to the long-term goal of removing Hezbollah from the border region. While both US and French proposals for peace would do this, they also appear to be non-starters as long as a Gaza ceasefire is not in place.
A large coalition of aid agencies has urged the cessation of hostilities on humanitarian grounds. They noted the 42 civilians killed since Israeli strikes began, including 7 children. They also reported that some 91,288 civilians were displaced from southern Lebanon.
In detailing the $1.2 billion in direct losses in the south, much of the destruction was inflicted on local farmland, with white phosphorus in particular causing considerable damage. This includes the destruction of 47,000 olive trees.
Meantime, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been talking up the possibility of using a ceasefire as an opportunity to escalate the war in Lebanon by diverting resources from the Gaza Strip.
Still, while a Gaza ceasefire has not been reached, Hamas said talks could resume over the coming weekend. There is hope for a Ramadan ceasefire, although as that month-long religious holiday begins March 10, there is not much time to forestall an all-out Lebanon war.
Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem downplayed the chances of a broader war, saying he is “90% sure that there will not be a large scale war,” adding that it would require Israel or the US to change their position for there to be one.
The IDF After getting mauled on southern front, now wants to try the northern front ?
The Likud is Israelis worst enemy.
I recently learned that India supports Israel against SA’s case at the ICJ. That’s amazing. After hundreds of years of being occupied, starved, divided, and controlled by England, the Indian people identify Israel as the victim? I also saw video clips of an Indian woman fighting along with the Israeli Occupation Forces. No way India was as stupid and brainwashed as we are, but I stand corrected. Way to go, India. I’m sure Gandhi would approve. By the way, I don’t feel sorry for what happened to you while under the brutal British occupation anymore. I forgive England. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. Except for you, India! It looks like you lost your eyes, brains, and souls.
Hatred of Muslims runs deep there.
Exactly, that is the motivation.
They hate Muslims because their population is growing…!
Good reason to hate any group of overpopulated humans.
They had a lot of trouble with Hezbollah in 2006, they must be delusional thinking they can do in Lebanon what they are doing in Gaza. Unless they are banking on US boots on the ground.
That’s exactly what they’re banking on. In fact, we are their bank and slaves.
I’ve been banned from PW, keep up the good work.
I noticed your comments missing, what triggered a ban? They seemed reasonable, especially compared to some of the random filth posted by Terje and Dean Barbour. Sometimes reasonable posters just vanish, which in my opinion is a little weird.
The same things I’ve posted on NEWSER. I also compared Hamas favorably to the uprisings in the Jewish Ghetto during World War II.
1895 – Israel’s Austrian “founder” Theodor Herzl:
“[We shall] spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the frontier by denying it employment. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”
1937 – Israel’s Polish first “Prime Minister” David Ben Gurion:
“We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places then we have force at our disposal.”
“after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine “
1948 – Plan Dalet by David Ben Gurion – destruction of Palestinian towns and villages, prevent the return of Palestinians to their homes and repopulat Arab towns with Jewish immigrants.
“We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return… The old will die and the young will forget.”
1967 – Koenig Memorandum:
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
1978 – Ariel Sharon Plan – built settlements along the north-south mountain ridge above Palestinian population centers, and constructed a lateral road network that linked the settlements with major Israeli cities inside the 1967 borders.
1980 – Drobles Plan by the World Zionist Organization:
“the state-owned lands and the uncultivated barren lands in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] ought to be seized right away… Being cut off by Jewish settlements the minority population will find it difficult to form a territorial and political continuity.
2017 – Decisive Plan by Bezalel Smotrich: Making life intolerable will force many Palestinians to quit the country. “Victory by settlement,” Smotrich writes in his plan, will show the Palestinians they have no hope of ever obtaining a separate state.
2024 – “Israel from the river to the sea” by Netanyaho
Just absolute bull… Israel is just lying and everyone knows it
That’s my birthday. A welcome gift to me – the beginning of the end of Israel.
Meanwhile, everyone is trying to downplay the likelihood of a wider war. They’re delusional as usual. Everyone keeps saying “no one wants a wider war” – they’re wrong. Both sides do. Everyone outside the “pundit class” recognizes that it’s time to end this once and for all. Israel got’s to go. And the US has to be kicked out of the Middle East permanently.
No Peace, NO ISRAEL bloody Hell!