Israeli Planes Bombard Civilian Areas in Lebanon

The Israeli army’s escalated military attacks against civilians and residential areas in Lebanon, particularly in the South and Bekaa regions, along with the issuance of evacuation orders, raising alarm in the region. Urgent international intervention is required to prevent the massacres and other atrocities being carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip for more than 11 months from occurring in Lebanon as well.

Israel’s army carried out over 330 raids in over 117 Lebanese towns and cities today, 23 September 2024, according to the Euro-Med Monitor field team. These raids were directed towards civilian residential areas in southern Lebanon and various areas of the Bekaa region. As a result, 274 people—including 21 children—have been killed and over 1,024 individuals—including women, children, and paramedics—have been injured as of the early afternoon hours. As of the time of writing, Israeli airstrikes are still in progress, with the frequency of shelling attacks on residential areas rising.

In both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the Israeli army deliberately denies civilians enough time to escape the areas being bombed, offering them no real protection from the dangers arising from military operations. Instead, Israel randomly and directly targets civilian buildings, including the buildings of surrounding hospitals and schools.

For instance, the inhabitants of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, which spans an area of about 4,429 square kilometres, were given just two hours to evacuate when the Israeli army issued evacuation orders. However, it would take many citizens at least three hours to leave areas within the valley. Moreover, the Israeli army neglected to designate safe zones to which people could escape—just as it has been doing in the Gaza Strip—showing that Israel either ignores the legal obligation to direct people to safe zones, or targets areas it has designated as safe. Since Israel began bombing Lebanon, dangerous conditions as well as significant challenges to the evacuation process have been documented.

The Israeli army is required by international humanitarian law to take all reasonable measures prior to any military attack in order to prevent, or at the very least reduce, harm to civilians and civilian property. This entails, among other things, providing the civilian populace with a sufficient amount of warning prior to the commencement of the attack; allowing them enough time to flee; and, unless circumstances dictate otherwise, enabling them to take protective action and relocate to safe areas.

International humanitarian law states that civilians who are unable or unwilling to leave an area are still protected as civilians, and that Israel is still obligated to protect them to the extent that they need to be shielded from harm simply because of their presence in the area.

In addition to towns in the Bekaa Valley, the Israeli army struck over 117 towns in the south of Lebanon, including some that saw serial and repeated raids, like Aitaroun, Ansar, Kfar Reman, Haris, Sarafand, and other villages in the districts of Tyre, Sidon, and Nabatieh. The Israeli army also announced that it had begun a third wave of raids and aggression against Lebanon.

Israel also used drones to light fires in southern Lebanon’s forests at the same time as it conducted warplane strikes, suggesting that Israel has been burning agricultural lands with white phosphorus—a weapon that is prohibited by international law due to the severity of burns it can cause. These burns often reach the bones of victims, and the severe fires caused by white phosphorus can destroy property, buildings, crops, and soil. It is likely that the Israeli military has been using white phosphorus in its attacks on Lebanon since its first attack on the country following the start of its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip on 8 October 2023.

Today’s military build-up in Lebanon follows an Israeli army raid on Friday 20 September 2024 into Beirut’s southern suburbs. The raid caused the collapse of two residential buildings, killing over 37 people—including children—and leaving more bodies trapped under the rubble, with the search for victims still ongoing.

Israeli forces launched a random and illegal attack on Lebanon earlier, on 17 September 2024, using radio and pager explosions. The attacks resulted in at least 32 fatalities, including two children as well as medical staff members, and 3,250 injuries, including to a diplomat. There were 200 cases of critical injuries, and 500 serious injuries to the eyes and limbs specifically.

All of the aforementioned Israeli attacks are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Additional Protocol, and international humanitarian law in general. These treaties require warring parties to always distinguish between civilians and combatants and offer special protection to vulnerable populations like journalists and the elderly, in addition to providing special protection to women and children. The Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians, its regulations, the Fourth Hague Convention, and Article 48 of the First Additional Protocol all attest to this; customary rules of international humanitarian law also support this.

International humanitarian law also prohibits indiscriminate attacks that do not distinguish between military and civilian targets, including attacks that do not target specific military objectives or that use combat means or methods incapable of being directed at a specific military objective.

The international community must act swiftly to stop Israel from repeating its genocide in the Gaza Strip in Lebanon, by safeguarding Lebanese civilians and stopping the situation from deteriorating further. Additionally, effective sanctions must be placed on Israel, such as a complete ban on arms exports, and Israel must be cut off from all forms of political, intelligence, and financial support. Finally, Israel must be held responsible for its ongoing crimes against peoples that occur on their own territory.

EuroMed Human Rights Monitor

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Amnesty Condemns Netanyahu’s Visit to Hungry

Responding to reports that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has invited and plans to host Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hungary on Wednesday, Erika Guevara-Rosas the head of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy of Amnesty International said:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.  As a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hungary must arrest him if he travels to the country and hand him over to the Court. Any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Netanyahu’s reported visit should be seen as a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and its work, and is an insult to the victims of these crimes who are looking to the Court for justice. Hungary’s invitation shows contempt for international law and confirms that alleged war criminals wanted by the ICC are welcome on the streets of a European Union member state.

“Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe. European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

“Amnesty International calls on the ICC Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute all Israel’s crimes. Hungary should equally do so by applying universal jurisdiction principles. Powerful leaders, like Netanyahu, accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity, must no longer enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.”

“The ICC was established to ensure accountability for victims of genocide and other crimes under international law, and so that crimes which shock the human conscience would “never again” be accompanied by impunity. In ‘bringing power to justice’, the ICC is now facing a global backlash from powerful leaders seeking to undermine the international rule of law and stamp out the prospect of accountability for the most powerful.”

Background

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Since then, leaders from ICC member states France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland have stated or implied that they would not arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he travelled to their respective countries. The United States has also enacted sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan.

A cornerstone principle of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute is that all individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants must be arrested and surrendered to the Court without recourse to immunity when they are within the jurisdiction of ICC member states, including on their territory.

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Israel Violates Syria With 11 Air Raids

Israel will not leave Syria alone! Israeli raids, Wednesday evening, struck the Scientific Research Institute in the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus according to Sana, the Syrian news agency.

https://twitter.com/warintel4u/status/1907509948881502435

Israeli warplanes went on to strike the Hama military base with more than 11 air raids, Sana pointed out. later reports show that the military airport was targeted 17 times.

The Israeli Channel 12 added that an additional target was the T4 military airport in rural Homs.

The Israeli raids, almost daily, started months ago on Syria and its capital, Damascus, and increased after 9 December 2024 when there was a change of regime in the country.

Residents in Damascus said they heard loud explosions after the intense air raids that targeted the scientific building in Barzeh.

But before that Israel has been conducting deadly air raids, literally mounting to thousands on Syria for years under the now ousted Baath regime of President Bashar Al Assad.

Israel then claimed it was targeting Hezbollah and Iranian bases but there were many deaths and injuries.

Israel occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights after the 1967 Arab-Israel war, and took advantage of the fall of the regime and occupying the country’s buffer zone and declaring the collapse of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two sides.

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