The nearly nine-month-long war between Israel and Lebanon has prompted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy nearly everything along the Lebanese side of the border. The daily attacks are making the area uninhabitable.
Citing satellite imagery, The Financial Times reports that the IDF use of “aerial bombardment, artillery shelling and the incendiary chemical white phosphorus have made much of the 5 km north of the Blue Line uninhabitable.” Some entire neighborhoods in Lebanon have been systematically leveled.
After the Israeli onslaught on Gaza began, Tel Aviv also got locked into a low-intensity war with Hezbollah. So far, the conflict has been limited to tit-for-tat daily strikes but these have slowly escalated. The fighting has killed hundreds in Lebanon and over 25 Israelis. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced from the border area, and large swaths of southern Lebanon have been decimated.
The IDF has used white phosphorus weapons – and even fireballs slung from trebuchets – to set fire to farms and vegetation. An Israeli official claimed that Tel Aviv was not trying to create a dead zone or buffer area, but rather to clear the area of Hezbollah. “We just want Hezbollah pushed back,” the official said. “We have to ‘clean out’ the area of Hezbollah’s presence.”
Tel Aviv justifies the destruction by claiming that Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, and Israeli officials make similar arguments about Hamas in Gaza. “Every third home in south Lebanon is used by Hezbollah for weapons storage, training, firing positions, and meeting points for a possible cross-border attack,” a senior Israeli military official told FT.
While the US has been attempting to achieve a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Israel and Hezbollah remain at an impasse. The Lebanese organization says its military operations are aimed at drawing some of Israel’s military resources away from Gaza, and it will cease attacks on Israel once the onslaught against the Palestinians is over.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to say he is not willing to end the military operations in Gaza, and Tel Aviv demands that Hezbollah withdraw several miles from the border to an area north of the Litani River.
In recent weeks, international concern has spiked that a major war between the IDF and Hezbollah will break out. The White House has made some proposals but is refusing to place any pressure on Tel Aviv to wind down military operations against Gaza or Lebanon.
Israeli officials say Hezbollah is running out of time to come to a diplomatic settlement. After a three-day trip to Washington earlier this week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to bomb Lebanon “back to the stone age” if Hezbollah does not comply with Tel Aviv’s demands.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
