Six things you should know as Israel steps up its attack on Lebanon

As I write this, Israel’s rampage in Lebanon has left more than a thousand people dead, thousands more injured (including many maimed for life) and displaced in two weeks Hundreds of thousands.

The Israeli attack — including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a 2,000-pound U.S.-made bomb that also killed others — has largely won the approval of American leaders, particularly the president and vice president.

Israel is continuing its genocidal assault on Gaza, bombing Yemen for the second time this year, carrying out airstrikes on Lebanon at a speed and scale perhaps unprecedented in the 21st century, and making plans for a ground invasion. As invasions and attacks escalate and expand across the region — and Washington continues to send weapons to Israel — here are six important things to know about Lebanon’s crisis and how it might be resolved.

1. Israel has a long history of attacks on Lebanon.

In 1982, at the height of Lebanon’s disastrous 15-year civil war, Israeli forces invaded and attacked Lebanese villages and Palestinian refugee camps with tanks, airstrikes and grenades.

Israel besieged Beirut and worked with far-right Christian Lebanese militias when they carried out an infamous massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp, killing thousands.

During these years, Hezbollah was formed to fight the Israeli occupation.

2. Israel occupied Lebanon for 15 years.

From 1985 to 2000, Israel occupied a large swath of southern Lebanon.

During this time, the Israeli military supported the South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia, which held Lebanese and Palestinian dissidents in a notorious Israeli-protected prison where Amnesty International and other human rights organizations documented systematic torture.

Israel justified its brutal occupation by claiming it needed a “buffer zone” to protect itself – the same excuse it uses today to justify its attacks in southern Lebanon.

3. Hezbollah is a political and social organization, not just a military one.

Although Hezbollah was founded as a military resistance movement, the organization plays a much larger role in Lebanese society.

Hezbollah took part in elections after the end of the civil war and remains one of the largest parties in the country today. Since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah also operates an extensive social services infrastructure, maintains hospitals and schools, cares for the families of those killed in the war, and carries out reconstruction.

So when Israel detonated hundreds of pagers to attack members of Hezbollah, the targets included medical personnel, education personnel and other non-military personnel.

4. Israel invaded Lebanon again in 2006.

As Israeli forces bomb Lebanon today, they are bringing back new memories of the last Israeli invasion in 2006. That attack, which Israel escalated after a brief exchange of missiles across the Lebanese-Israeli border, lasted 34 days and left over 1,000 Lebanese civilians dead and destroyed civil infrastructure such as the Liban Lait milk factory.

In the words of an Israeli officer commanding a missile unit: “What we did was crazy and monstrous; We covered entire cities with cluster bombs.” Since then, unexploded munitions have remained in southern Lebanon, posing a great danger to residents – especially children.

The 2006 Israel-Lebanon War coincided with the first major Israeli attack on Gaza following the withdrawal of settlers from there.

5. A permanent ceasefire in Gaza could end the fighting in Lebanon.

Given history, it is not surprising that military clashes have frequently occurred on the Israel-Lebanese border. But last year’s violence can be traced directly to Israel’s disastrous offensive in Gaza.

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023, and Israel carried out cross-border attacks of its own. Although Hezbollah has missiles capable of hitting almost any Israeli city, it has largely limited its attacks – with a few exceptions – to villages across the border, which were largely evacuated after October 7.

Hezbollah has said it will stop firing rockets if Israel ends its attack on Gaza. When Israeli forces and Hamas reached a temporary ceasefire and exchange of hostages and prisoners in November 2023, Hezbollah actually abided by the ceasefire.

6. Suspending U.S. arms sales is key to a ceasefire.

Ending the growing catastrophe in Lebanon – and preventing its escalation into a full-scale war – requires the same solution as ending the carnage in Gaza: an immediate and lasting ceasefire. And that means the US must stop sending weapons to Israel.

President Biden said in his final address to the UN General Assembly on September 24 that it was time to “end this war.” But his actions say the opposite. In August, the White House approved $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel, despite months of well-documented abuses by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and months of Israeli threats to invade Lebanon.

It will take generations to recover from the devastation in Gaza and now perhaps Lebanon. The first step, however, is for Washington to stop supplying weapons – in line with the demands of the majority of Americans.

This first appeared on FPIF.