Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
About 500,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, and the Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days.
“There is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now,” says Beirut-based journalist Lara Bitar, who details how Israel has repeatedly attacked and invaded Lebanese territory going back decades.
“The source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.”
What did Lebanon do to Israel?
Lebanon itself not so much. Hezbollah, a Iran-financed militia that started as just a paramilitary group and evolved into a political party in Lebanon, however, controls various areas of Lebanon and kept launching rockets. UN resolution 1701 attempted to stop the constant fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. All parties agreed to it, but Hezbollah didn’t implement the rather important points of disarming the militia and retreating from the border with Israel. They also kind of kept shooting rockets at Israel to the point where the border area is mostly uninhabited by now.
Not to defend them, but Hezbollah attacked them one day after October 7th (so October 8th) in support of Hamas, which marked the start of the current round of violence. Israel widely escalated that with the pager attack which Hezbollah responded to with a bunch of rockets and then this happened. So: Opposed Israel’s genocide with military action.
