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.
Hellbound and Down 