Overnight, the Lebanese town of Habboush was targeted in Israeli airstrikes, causing significant damage. In the morning, Israeli artillery was actively shelling the town, causing even more destruction in residential and commercial parts of town.
Habboush is just one of several towns reporting roughly the same situation, active Israeli attacks, in spite of what is notionally an active ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. In practice, very little fire seems to actually be ceased.
The Israeli Army has reported that it has hit an estimated 500 areas in Lebanon since April 17, when the ceasefire initially went into effect. Though the ceasefire has been extended before and on paper goes through much of May, the fighting and the firing seems to be a constant in southern Lebanon.
An Israeli flag flies amid the ruins of Bint Jbeil | Image from X
The problems are myriad, but the most obvious are the widespread displacement of Lebanese civilians and the massive amount of destruction being caused to civilian property and religious sites. The Council of Melkite Greek Catholic Bishops in Lebanon yesterday issued a statement calling on the government and UN to do something about protecting such buildings.
Israel has repeatedly said they don’t target religious buildings, which sounds good in theory, but repeated IDF destruction of plainly religious sites is the daily reality on the ground. The bishops’ statement comes in the wake of a weekend incident in which Israeli forces attacked and badly damaged a convent in Yaroun.
The IDF denied destroying the convent, showing an image that they said was the building still standing and largely unharmed. A Christian leader from Yaroun, however, said that the building shown was actually the archbishopric and clinic that were next door to the convent, which was effectively totally destroyed with bulldozers.
The UNHCR representative in Lebanon, Karolina Billing, warned that Lebanon was facing a “deeply fragile moment” and that despite the ceasefire, and an additional 380 Lebanese have been killed in Israeli strikes.
The number of displaced continues to rise. The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) estimated 1.2 million Lebanese, about 20% of the population, have been displaced by the war, though the Lebanese government has suggested it could be as high as 1.6 million, amounting to over a quarter of Lebanon’s entire population.
