Israel Is Extending Its Genocidal War to Lebanon

Israel has unleashed hell in Lebanon.

On Monday, waves of Israeli air strikes that by Tuesday morning had killed 558 people in southern and eastern Lebanon, including women and children, while displacing thousands others who fled north for safety following Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) warnings to evacuate. At least 1,835 civilians have been reported wounded.

Footage shows Israeli forces carpet-bombing civilian homes across Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, hitting at least fifty-eight towns and villages. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, the Israeli bombing has targeted homes, medical centers, ambulances, and the cars of people trying to flee. Entire Lebanese families have been wiped out. Horrific footage shows children trapped under the rubble.

This is a blatant war crime.

The assault on Monday comes amid fears of a looming Israeli ground invasion in Lebanon, which threatens to escalate into a full-blown regional war. In a CNN interview on Sunday, UN secretary-general António Guterres warned that all-out war would risk “the possibility of transforming Lebanon into another Gaza,” which he said would be “a devastating tragedy for the world.”

But a regional war is precisely what Israel wants. Armed with a bottomless supply of US weapons, Israel is extending its genocidal war to Lebanon with clear intent on a regional escalation that could directly implicate the United States. Following the Monday massacre, the Pentagon dispatched additional troops to the region in anticipation of a wider conflict. The assault also comes just hours after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his “support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Lebanese Hezbollah attacks.”

Taking a page from its Gaza script, the Israeli military has characterized the massacre as an “extensive” assault on Hezbollah, while parroting the genocidal logic that there are no civilians in Lebanon. Israeli prime minister Benjamin…