Israel attacking civilian targets without warning has become almost de rigueur in Lebanon these days. Overnight, however, the surprise attacks reached a new level, with Israel leveling an 8-storey apartment building in Central Beirut with a bunker buster bomb.
The building was on Mamoun Street in the Basta al-Fawqa. The attack came at about 4:00 AM, and the explosion was so powerful it was felt all across the Lebanese capital city. At least 29 people have been killed, and over 70 wounded. Rescue operations are still ongoing.
The use of a bunker buster bomb on a plainly civilian target seems excessive, and it’s not clear why Israel chose this unassuming building in the crowded center of Beirut to hit with such powerful weaponry. Israel has not publicly commented on the matter.
Reports from Israeli media, however, suggest the attack aimed to kill Muhammad Haydar, who has risen to a high military position within Hezbollah, following assassinations of previous group leaders. However, Hezbollah insists neither Haydar nor any other Hezbollah members were in the building at the time.
The bunker buster bombs are meant for targeting heavily fortified, or underground, complexes. The residential building, however, was clearly not meant to withstand airstrikes, let alone massive bombings, and the result with a big crater in the center of the neighborhood.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem earlier this week said that the attacks on central Beirut, which began last week, justified Hezbollah attacks on central Tel Aviv. This week, a missile strike did damage to an area of the Tel Aviv District, but east of the city of Tel Aviv itself.
This all suggests that the war is continuing to escalate, and while US officials have expressed hopes about a ceasefire possibility, there is no sign of anything calming down.
Does it resemble a war yet?….
Looks like expansion of ethnic cleansing to me
Yes but still waiting for the true escalation when Iran fullfills "True Promise 3", which may well be a land invasion of Palestine and/or direct war with the USA.
Keep waiting. Why would Iran provoke a war with the USA? Does Iran want to lose its small and limited Navy and Airforce? Not to mention the destruction of its communications systems, electrical system and industrial facilities.
The only way ahead is quite clearly to destroy Israel (and replace it by a non-racist unified Palestine). It’s not just the only way ahead for humanitarian and humanist justice but for the reality of the showdown in West Asia, where the USA has been again behaving very aggressively in order to consolidate its imperial/neocolonial project in the region. This goes through consolidating Israel as major trading hub, including the projected Ben Gurion Canal, which requires the destruction of Gaza and broadly all Palestine, something that they’re trying hard but failing at ultimately.
It’s been the USA-Israel who have been pushing for war against Iran, very clearly so. Maybe sometimes it was Israel the main pushed but now that Bibi’s super-friend Trump is back in charge, everybody agrees that the war will escalate (not that it’d be different under Blinken anyhow, but Trump may be even worse in his rabid Imperial Zionism). Hence Iran has to take decisive action and finish the war fast and radically, what goes either by directly invading Israel by land (via Syria and necessarily involving Iraq and Jordan) or by taking the war to the true leader (the USA) and destroying its presence in the Persian Gulf with decisive blows to all military bases, blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and subversion of Saudi Arabia and Bahrein (the latter Shia majority, the former with strong disaffected Shia minorities in the most strategical region of the East). Either way Iraq will get involved and the USA too (unless it pulls back, which seems unlikely without a fight), there’s very little room for half-measures anymore: in the less bad case scenario the USA will try to force the hand of Iran by having tiny and collapsing Israel to have “the last word” (i.e. attacking Iran and get away impunely), what Iran is not having at all, because they know they are much much stronger than Israel and can fight one on one against the USA in the region, with very high chances of success, as long as it doesn’t escalate to nuclear war.
PS.- I believe you overestimate what the USA/Israel can do against Iran in terms non-nuclear: the USA relies on extremely vulnerable military bases and aircraft carrier (Yemen alone has hit or at least scared two US aircraft carrier fleets already, Iran is much more powerful than little rag-tag Yemen). What has the USA pulled out of the hat afterwards? A nuclear submarine (I believe that back to home base already) and two stratobombers (plus scort jet fighters). Do you think that the USA can actually defeat Iran with merely two strategic bombers? The only dissuasion here could be the risk of nuclear retaliation, which the USA has not yet made clear at all and is most unlikely because of Russian alliance with Iran (mutual defense pact about to be formalized any day). However this probably means that Iran will try to operate against Israel rather than against the USA, because the USA is not legally obligued to defend Israel (there’s no alliance, only informal agreements), it may also involve suverting Jordan and going through Iraq via ad-hoc agreement. It seems it will involve the Iranian land army, nominally because of vengeful honor, as Israel killed four of their soldiers, but actually because Iran wants to show Israel that it will have to contend with a land invasion and not just massive bombings, a land invasion that will almost certainly be able to regain Golan Heights for Syria and will probably, with the help of Hizbollah, also be able to penentrate into Gallilee and join with the West Bank that way (while also suberting and maybe attacking Jordan as well, which again is not legally protected by the USA or Britain or anybody at all and has a very shaky pro-Western regime).
THE REAL ISRAEL BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE AND TIM FOLEY:
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One of the very few good things coming out of the relentless nightmare happening in Gaza is that at long last the western world is getting a clear look at Israel. The real Israel.
Not the Israel they teach you about in school. Not “the only democracy in the middle east,” where they were given safe haven after their victimization at the hands of the Nazis and managed to create a thriving society despite existing in a sea of savage enemies bent on their destruction.
Not that Israel. The real one. Arguably the most racist society on earth, whose existence has depended on nonstop violence, theft, tyranny and abuse since its very inception.
The real Israel, whose government is deliberately and methodically starving Palestinian civilians to death by the tens of thousands just for being the wrong ethnicity.
The real Israel, whose snipers routinely murders Palestinian children by shooting them in the head.
The real Israel, whose military is so sadistic that it created an AI system to specifically target suspected Hamas fighters when they are at home with their families, and called the AI “Where’s Daddy?” because it would be killing fathers when they are at home with their children.
The real Israel, whose soldiers cannot stop posting footage of themselves mockingly dressed in the undergarments of dead and displaced Palestinian women and playing with the toys of dead and displaced Palestinian children.
The real Israel, where Palestinian doctors are raped and tortured to death.
The real Israel, where the majority of men do not believe acquaintance rape or spousal rape are real crimes, and where the majority do not believe the soldiers accused of raping and torturing a Palestinian prisoner to the point of severe injury should face criminal charges.
The real Israel, who routinely bombs buildings full of civilians and then uses sniper drones to pick off the survivors, including children.
The real Israel, whose drones have been heard playing the sounds of crying babies and screaming women in order to lure out civilians so they can be killed.
The real Israel, who has damaged or destroyed 94 percent of the healthcare facilities in Gaza with hundreds of targeted attacks.
The real Israel, whose military forces target medical staff so methodically that doctors and nurses in Gaza reportedly change out of their uniforms when they leave the hospital in order to avoid assassination.
The real Israel, who hates truth so much that it has been killing historic numbers of journalists in Gaza while preventing foreign journalists from entering the enclave.
The real Israel, who has been knowingly attacking the locations of humanitarian aid workers.
The real Israel, whose citizens are so warped and twisted that they attend boat tours to cheerfully witness the devastation in the Gaza Strip.
The real Israel, whose citizens set up blockades to prevent aid trucks from getting to starving civilians in Gaza while they enjoy barbecues and set up bouncy castles and cotton candy machines for their children.
The real Israel, whose TikTok influencers started a viral trend mocking the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
The real Israel, whose citizens will travel to another country and tear down Palestinian flags and sing about how there are no children left in Gaza and then cry victim when people fight back.
This is the real Israel, in all its glory. And it is good that it is being seen.
The sooner everyone stops supporting this freakish, murderous society and begins insisting that normal human values win out over the demented forces which keep it going, the sooner there can be peace in the region. And the better off our entire species will be. –Caitlin Johnstone and Tim Foley
Many genocides have been committed all through history but the Israeli genocide in Gaza is the most sadistic genocide, maybe I am wrong, but to me it looks more brutal and evil than the genocide the NAZIS COMMITTED.
The freakish and murderous Israeli society and their trained, and evil children should go to hell.
If hell doesn’t exist, it would have to be invented, since there is little justice in this world, another world would need to exist for justice to happen.
"maybe I am wrong" Yes, you are wrong.
Twisted Lysister does the honest thing and prefaces with admission that they could be wrong.
I myself am always open to a) being proven wrong by facts and evidence I did not have, and b) changing my position to align with reality as demonstrated by new facts and evidence.
YOU have never asserted anything less than absolute certainty on every immoral, hateful, quietly racist, inhuman fiat-statement that falls out your a$$ onto your keyboard. You dishonestly believe you are always right & cannot be wrong.
You steadfastly believe on a Wednesday what you said on a Monday even after many of us corrected you with evidence on the Tuesday.
Close-mindedness is not the mark of wisdom or rational thought. It makes you a joke – a worn-out punchline.
Prove it. Well, of course you can’t prove anything.
It's also given us a look at the Real American Federal government. A rotten and criminal institution which serves the whims of a foreign apartheid colony 5,000 miles away instead of the American people.
The use of a bunker buster bomb on a plainly civilian target seems excessive, and it’s not clear why Israel chose this unassuming building in the crowded center of Beirut to hit with such powerful weaponry. Israel has not publicly commented on the matter.
They "chose" to use the bunker buster because they can and it doesn't have to be clear as to why. When your benefactor gives you 30 days to stop starving Palestinians in Gaza and you answer that with a big 'fuck you', there is no need to fear any ramifications for whatever terrorist act you might want to carry out regardless of where.
Retaliation came soon afterwards with Hizbollah bombing Tel Aviv and other targets: