21st September 2024
Residential Beirut, bombed by Israeli forces on Friday
The prospects of all out war in the Middle East accelerated this week as Israel swept aside calls for a ceasefire and stepped up its military action in Lebanon. The detonation of explosives in pagers and walkie talkies used by Hezbollah is estimated to have resulted in 37 deaths and over 3,000 casualties. Israel has not commented on the action but the operation clearly has the fingerprints of the Israeli secret service, Mossad, all over it.
The attack, in which several children were the victims, follows a week in which Israel announced a new phase in the war, moving the centre of gravity from Gaza to the northern border with Lebanon. Having reduced much of Gaza to rubble, the Israelis have created a humanitarian crisis due to restricted food supplies and medical aid. Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) have stated that,
“Infectious diseases including diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections, and hepatitis are on the rise due to overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions in camps where displaced people are sheltering, and shortages of medicines and medical supplies.”
MSF and United Nations teams on the ground are tackling acute food shortages with latest figures suggesting that starvation is inevitable under the Israeli government’s policy of deliberate deprivation. According to the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC), almost half a million people (22% of the population of Gaza) are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.
Israeli fighters bombing a residential suburb of Beirut yesterday killed at least 12 people, including 5 children, with a further 66 wounded according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The strike hit the Dahiya district during rush hour as people were leaving work and children were heading home from school.
Local networks broadcast footage that showed a high-rise building flattened just kilometres from downtown Beirut. First responders combed through the rubble of at least two collapsed apartment buildings to search for missing people. Israel claims that it has killed top Hezbollah commanders in the strikes.
A further wave of strikes across southern Lebanon have seen some of the most intense bombing of recent months with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) claiming that it was aiming “to degrade Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.” The prospect of a ground based incursion into Lebanon has not been ruled out.
For nearly a year, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border in support of Hamas. Hezbollah has fired rockets regularly into Israel but with little impact, either falling in barren areas or being intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome system. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have been forced to flee their homes due to the fighting.
The current escalation of action by Israel brings closer the likelihood of a more concerted response from Hezbollah and the prospect of Iranian intervention, in support of their partners in the so-called axis of resistance. While Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati blamed Israel for the explosions, saying that they represented a “serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards”, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he told his Lebanese counterpart that he “strongly condemned Israeli terrorism”.
While Britain has implemented a limited arms embargo against Israel, by suspending some weapons licences, the IDF are still largely bankrolled by the United States, who have confined their response to recent events to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, “calling for restraint and urging de-escalation.” The UN has said it is “very concerned” following the strike on Beirut.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) will be lobbying Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this weekend “to demand the government ceases its complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians, and ends all arms trade with Israel.”
The collusion of the imperialist powers in the oppression of the Palestinian people, through the arming of Israel and the failure to enforce UN resolutions, has emboldened successive Israeli governments to undermine Palestinian rights and the prospect of an independent Palestinian state. While many Israelis remain committed to live in peace with Palestinian and other Arab neighbours, the religious fundamentalists in Israel have increasing gained ground, to the extent that they are effectively dictating current government strategy.
The state of Israel has the right to exist, within internationally agreed borders, but so too does the state of Palestine, on the same basis. The British government acknowledging this and stating it explicitly would be a step in the right direction. Kier Starmer claims to be leading a government which will ‘listen’. In which case the message from the streets of cities across Britain is quite clear – End the genocide in Gaza, Stop arming Israel!
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