Tag: lebanon

Media Downplay Israeli Violations of Hezbollah Ceasefire

Israel and Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of November that required both sides to refrain from attacks on each other. The terms also included a mutual pullback from southern Lebanon after 60 days.

Despite the deal, Israel has subsequently launched repeated strikes on Lebanon against targets it claimed were Hezbollah, killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. The violations began immediately, with Israel attacking journalists and vehicles mere hours after the deal was signed.

Within a week of signing the deal, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that Israel had violated the ceasefire around 100 times, killing 15 people. Shortly after these initial strikes, Hezbollah launched two strikes into the disputed border zone that it called an “initial defensive and warning response” to Israel against continued ceasefire violations. These strikes did not kill or injure any Israelis. Despite this, Israel responded by continuing its ceasefire violations, killing more and more, bringing the post-ceasefire death toll to more than 30.

Despite the overwhelming number of Israeli attacks in the post-ceasefire period, news audiences have heard that a “tense ceasefire holds” (AP, 12/1/24). Media repeatedly reported on these violations as both sides “trading” or “exchanging” fire (New York Times, 12/2/24; AP, 12/3/24; NBC, 12/3/24; Semafor, 12/4/24; Financial Times, 12/3/24; Wall Street Journal, 12/3/24). While technically accurate, such reporting frames both sides as equally culpable in violating the ceasefire, allowing media to avoid acknowledging that Israel that Israel is by far the primary and more consistent violator.

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Israeli airstrikes, artillery shelling pound south Lebanon in latest ceasefire violations

Tel Aviv continued its relentless attacks on southern Lebanon on 10 December, carrying out several strikes, including an attack on the Lebanese Civil Defense – violating the ceasefire reached between Lebanon and Israel late last month. 

Several Israeli attacks struck south Lebanon on Tuesday. Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that a Lebanese citizen was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Bint Jbeil. 

Israeli forces also targeted rescue teams trying to retrieve bodies in the south. 

“An Israeli helicopter chased Lebanese Civil Defense personnel while they were trying to retrieve the bodies of martyrs from the southern Lebanese town of Shamaa, forcing them to withdraw, and targeting the location they were in with artillery shelling,” Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. 

It reported earlier on 10 December that “a joint patrol of the Lebanese army and the Polish unit in UNIFIL was subjected to warning fire from Israeli forces while trying to open the Aitaroun–Bint Jbeil highway, which had been blocked by the Israelis last Thursday.”

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), Israeli troops opened fire at the outskirts of the town of Shaqra and other areas in the south, and fired artillery at the outskirts of Sheheen and Al-Jubain. 

NNA also reported “massive bombings” in the town of Khiam, while Israeli troops continued to demolish homes and buildings in the area. 

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Ceasefire Violations Rage In Southern Lebanon

Ceasefire violations are raging across southern Lebanon as Iranian proxy army Hezbollah attempts to regain positions lost to the IDF in recent months.

The IDF is warning residents of the region to not return to their homes or they could be fired upon.

The IDF does not intend to shoot at you,” the IDF spokesman said in his announcement, “and therefore, at this stage, you should not return to your homes south of this line. Anyone who moves south will expose themselves to danger.”

*Prime Minister’s Office Statement*

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have directed the IDF to not allow the entry of the population to the area of the villages adjacent to the border with southern Lebanon, as per the first stage of implementing the framework of the ceasefire.

The IDF has arrested four Hezbollah militants, including a local commander, who entered the prohibited area, and will continue to take strong action against any violation.

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Biden Administration Pressuring Israel To End Lebanon War Before Hezbollah Destroyed As IDF Reaches Latani River-Nerve Gas Found In Tunnels-Hezbollah Readies Strike

Reports are emanating from Israel that the Netanyahu security cabinet is about to approve a ceasefire in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon after severe pressure from the Biden administration. The measure will not need full government approval as it is not a formal agreement but a tactical measure.

It seems The White House wants to see Hezbollah remain in-tact and live to fight another day and continue to threaten Israel from the north. This outcome is being forced under threat of a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding a stop to the war, and sanctions against The Jewish State. A complete weapons embargo is also being threatened.

Israeli leaders are considering this development in order to get a more friendly American leader in power to Jewish interests, even though a ceasefire will be hard to end once established and there is no fighting for a period of months.

A ceasefire will bring no ‘exclusion zone’ patrolled by Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, no prevention of Lebanese army assets that may be infiltrated in the region, no punishment of Hezbollah collaborators along the Israeli border, and French diplomats involved in the ceasefire implementation, who are not seen as friendly to Israel.

This comes on the heels of discoveries by IDF troops of nerve gas, chemical equipment, a large amount of weapons and date rape drugs in the Hezbollah tunnels according to reports by pro-Israeli journalists.

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Violent Israeli raids hit Beirut suburb after massacre in Mount Lebanon

Violent Israeli airstrikes continued to rain down on the southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, on 13 November, following a heavy night of continuous attacks on the area. 

“Enemy warplanes targeted, in the third raid on the southern suburb, a building near Al-Zahraa Broasted in Mshrafiyeh,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported at around noon on Wednesday. 

Israeli strikes targeted the Ghobeiry area and Haret Hreik several times during the morning hours. Buildings in Laylaki, Bir al-Abed, and at the Rawdat al-Shahidayn–Shiyah intersection were also hit.

Tel Aviv issued evacuation orders to Haret Hreik and Ghobeiry earlier on 13 November. Heavy and successive airstrikes had pounded the southern suburb overnight.

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Israel and the U.S. are interfering in Lebanese politics to oust Hezbollah — here’s why it won’t work

In his first speech as Secretary General, the new leader of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said that the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon had been meeting leaders of Lebanese political parties opposed to Hezbollah. According to Qassem, the ambassador was trying to convince them that Hezbollah’s collapse in the face of Israel’s offensive was imminent, urging the Lebanese parties to oppose Hezbollah. 

“You will never see our defeat,” Qassem said, addressing the ambassador, Lisa A. Johnson, directly and ignoring the Lebanese parties in question.

Two weeks earlier, a group of anti-Hezbollah parties gathered in the town of Maarab in Mount Lebanon, the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces — a far-right Christian party headed by its chairman, Samir Geagea. The parties in attendance issued a joint statement that indirectly blamed Iran for pushing Lebanon into a war it had no stake in, hijacking the decision of peace and war in Lebanon, and recruiting Lebanese citizens and using them as soldiers and “human shields.” The latter phrase was a veiled reference to Hezbollah, its social support base, and the people of southern Lebanon in general. The parties in Maarab also called for the election of a new president to the country.

Heading the meeting was Samir Geagea, a Maronite Christian known for his brutal suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese adversaries, including Christian rivals, during the Lebanese Civil War that took place between 1975 and 1989. He is also known for his collaboration with Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon after 1982 and for having spent 12 years in a Syrian prison on charges of collaboration with Israel.

Geagea has also been openly voicing his will to run for president of Lebanon, which under the Lebanese constitution must be held by a Christian Maronite. The president’s chair has been vacant for two years now, as the opposing political forces have failed to agree on a candidate. The president in Lebanon is elected by the parliament and thus needs a degree of consensus between represented parties, which has been absent since the latest president, Michel Aoun, finished his term in October 2022.

Aoun was an ally of Hezbollah and represented an important trend of Christian support for the resistance group in Lebanese politics since 2008. During his presidency, Hezbollah’s adversaries in Lebanon, like Geagea, continued to accuse the resistance group of taking over the state, especially during the height of the Syrian Civil War, in which Hezbollah was actively involved in defending the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. After Aoun’s presidency, several political parties were unwilling to accept a president who would be close to Hezbollah and its allies. This presidential vacancy has extended to the current day.

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Prepping Readers to Accept Mass Slaughter in Lebanese ‘Strongholds’

Back in May 2015, the New York Times’ Isabel Kershner decided to moonlight as an Israeli military propagandist by penning an alleged exposé (5/12/15)—headlined “Israel Says Hezbollah Positions Put Lebanese at Risk”—in which she diligently conveyed all that Israel had to say about Hezbollah’s infrastructure in south Lebanon.

The minuscule hamlet of Muhaybib, for example, was said to contain no fewer than “nine arms depots, five rocket-launching sites, four infantry positions, signs of three underground tunnels, three anti-tank positions and, in the very center of the village, a Hezbollah command post.” In the village of Shaqra, home to approximately 4,000 people, the Israeli army had meanwhile identified some “400 military sites and facilities belonging to Hezbollah.”

Only after 11 full paragraphs of transmitting the Israeli line did Kershner manage to insert the disclaimer that “the Israeli claims could not be independently verified.” But by that time, of course, the damage had been done, the reader having already been persuaded that south Lebanon was one big Hezbollah military installation, where Israel could not afford to concern itself with civilian lives in any future conflict. Driving the point home was former Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror, who informed Kershner that “many, many Lebanese will be killed” in the next showdown with Hezbollah.

I happened to be in south Lebanon at the time of the article’s publication, and drove over to Muhaybib and Shaqra to check out the fearsome landscape. Though I did not encounter any Hezbollah command posts, I did see some schoolchildren, elderly folks, bakeries, farms, clothing shops and, in Shaqra, a colorful establishment offering “Botox filling.”

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The long road to Beirut now Israel has bombed Syrian borders

On Thursday 7th of November I set off for Beirut. I could no longer use the direct road through the Masnaa border with Lebanon. Israel has now bombed the road at least twice reducing the stretch between the Syrian and Lebanese border to rubble. The US influence (on behalf of Israel) in Lebanon has prohibited any attempts by the Lebanese or Syrian side to repair the road. Israel has threatened to bomb it again if either side tries to restore operations.

The blue dotted line is the usual route which is fast and efficient. The purple dotted line is the route now needed to reach Beirut from Damascus. Israel has also bombed several points and bridges on the Homs western route so it is necessary to head for Tartous further north on the coast and then turn south to reach the border.

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Netanyahu Admits Israel Behind Pager Explosion Operation

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted Israeli responsibility for the Hezbollah pager explosion operation that kicked off the war on the north along the Lebanese border.

At today’s government meeting, Netanyahu acknowledged responsibility for the pager operation against Hezbollah for the first time, reported Amir Tsarfati.

“Senior security officials and the political leadership overseeing them opposed both the pager operation and Nasrallah’s elimination,” he said.

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Erasing ‘Any Sign of Life,’ Israeli Demolition Teams Razing Entire Villages in Lebanon

As the death toll from Israel’s 13-month assault on Lebanon passed 3,000, satellite imagery analyses published by multiple media outlets in recent days revealed that nearly a quarter of all buildings in 25 municipalities in the southern part of the Mideastern country have been destroyed or damaged in a ferocious campaign that has left entire villages in ruins.

Satellite photos examined by The Washington Post, Reuters, and the Financial Times showed vast destruction caused by Israeli bombing and controlled demolitions of towns and villages, many of whose residents are among the more than 1.2 million people forcibly displaced by the war.

“There are beautiful old homes, hundreds of years old,” Meiss al-Jabal Mayor Abdulmonem Choukeir told Reuters. “Thousands of artillery shells have hit the town, hundreds of air strikes. Who knows what will still be standing at the end?”

Meiss al-Jabal native Fatima Ghoul told The Washington Post that “everything has been reduced to rubble” in the town of 8,000 inhabitants. Footage circulating on social media Monday showed large portions of the village, which has been inhabited for many hundreds of years, turned to dust in a simultaneous series of demolition explosions.

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