Lebanon at war: Israeli strikes kill at least 492, 35 children | Middle East

For tens of thousands of people in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, the war began almost a year ago. According to the Israeli government, 60,000 people have fled their homes in towns and villages near the Lebanese border – so they can return home, it says, beginning what it calls a “new phase of conflict”. Across the border, tens of thousands have fled (90,000 as of Monday, the UN says), many with nowhere to flee, and hundreds killed as of last week. What is happening now is different: Israel has taken the war to the entire country, with the biggest bombings the Lebanese can remember.

At first, the attacks were concentrated in the south, then in the east, and by the end of the day on Beirut.

Officials are calling it the “deadliest” day in Lebanon since the civil war ended in 1990 and the largest exodus since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. In a few hours, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched hundreds of attacks, killing at least 492 people, including 35 children, as well as “women and paramedics”, and injuring more than 1600 (as reported by the Lebanese Ministry of Health at the end of the day).

The victims included dozens of Hezbollah members, but also many civilians, with two waves of beeping blasts and Walkie talkies Used by Shiite militias, with all the bombings that followed on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

Day care centers were closed, schools closed due to violence, and reopened to serve as emergency shelters.

The roads of tiny Lebanon were jammed with cars, people trying to escape from the south to the north and towards Beirut, and those trying to leave the country’s capital and largest city on the Mediterranean coast, not sure what. target.

“It is not yet officially called a war, but it has all the characteristics of one. Decision-makers and analysts may refer to it as an escalation, but for those living the consequences – for the family grieving for their lost loved ones, for the couple whose already sealed home is now in ruins, the son’s mother will never return – It’s a war,” wrote journalist Ali Hashem on the X Network (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera and a collaborator among others. Average Arabs. “There is no other word in the dictionary that captures this more accurately.”

Monday’s bombings still convinced Lebanese they were now living in a country at war, but panic began to spread after thousands of people. Pagers Simultaneous explosions hit homes, streets or shops used by Lebanese Shiite militias.

The next day, explosions Walkie talkies They happened a little bit everywhere, including at the funeral of two Hezbollah members, a child and a nurse in Beirut. In a report published by an Israeli newspaper The Times of IsraelA (mother) Ibrahim, “confused” begged a journalist to let her use her cell phone to call her children. When the main fear was that any communication device could explode at any moment, that no bomb could hit any house, “Turn off your phones now!” he shouted.

The attacks on the beepers and the more than 2,800 injuries they caused left hospitals unable to respond, as doctors tried to respond to injured people, many with lost eyes or amputated hands. This Monday, the Ministry of Health asked all hospitals in the south and east to “suspend non-essential operations” to allow them to “treat the wounded from the expansion of the Israeli occupation”.

Warnings about the scale of the bombings began reaching Lebanese phones early in the morning, with tens of thousands of automated calls warning that the IDF planned to step up its operations — first in the south; In the afternoon, warnings were sent to residents of the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country, near the border with Syria.

The phone calls followed reports from IDF spokesmen that told them to move people “at least a thousand meters” away from any Hezbollah positions, including “buildings or houses where missiles and weapons are stored.” Lebanese citizens know where Iranian-backed militias hide weapons. “Get out now!” Spokesman Daniel Hagari said, “In a specific warning to the residents of the Bekaa Valley.” Do it “within two hours” and go to “the nearest school,” the IDF spokesman ordered. Average Arabs, Avichay Adraee.

Later, it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who warned the Lebanese to “get out of harm’s way.” “Please get out of harm’s way now. Once our operation is over, you can safely return to your homes,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. The Guardian.

According to the Israeli military, about 1,300 targets were hit, including “buildings where Hezbollah was hiding. RocketsMissiles, Missiles, Drones and other terrorist infrastructures.” But the truth is that just like the explosions Pagers Attacks of this scale and nature are not possible without many civilian casualties, taking into account the fact that attacks of this scale and nature cannot be described as “precision” attacks, taking into account the fact that it is impossible to predict where they will explode and who they will hit.

“South Lebanon is Lebanon. Becca Lebanon. Daehye [bairro nos subúrbios da capital conhecido por ser um bastião do Hezbollah que tem sido alvo de muitos bombardeamentos] It was Beirut. They are not separate entities because Israel says they are,” Lebanese journalist Farah-Silvana wrote in Canaan X. “Lebanon is small. Everything is close. They are bombing Lebanon. They are killing Lebanese,” she noted. “They want to reoccupy part of our land. They won’t do it,” he adds.

Rockets To achieve more

In an analysis published in HaaretzColumnist Alon Pinkas, Israel’s former consul general in New York, insisted that the idea of ​​”a ‘limited war'” does not exist in Lebanon. “Whoever uses this term either conveniently forgets history, or doesn’t understand the current context,” he argues.

In return, Hizbullah drew close to 200 Rocketsthe first against military targets in northern Israel; Later, the Lebanese group shot at least ten people Rockets Long distance (first in this war, according to the newspaper The Times of Israel) against settlements in the occupied West Bank “more than 100 kilometers from the border”.

Ali Hashem writes that sirens sounded for the first time “east of Tel Aviv” and that the targeted settlements were 120 kilometers away, describing it as “the greatest distance” reached by the militants in the history of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. ”.

“As the death toll rises in Lebanon, the numbers rise Rockets and its deepening in Israel’s north, drawing millions of people on both sides into a cycle of violence,” wrote Mairav ​​Sonschen, journalist and researcher of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on the X Network. Think tank International Crisis Group. “What will this accomplish? Where is the end?”