Israel promises war crimes in Lebanon - after trashing farcical 'ceasefire'

A ceasefire rigged in Israel's favour was repeatedly violated by Israel - despite its deceitful claims.

Israel is openly promising to commit war crimes in Lebanon, after it repeatedly violated a ceasefire which was already a farce to begin with, with the latest assault on southern Lebanon killing at least 12 people.

Israel Katz is the current defence minister, after the previous defence minister, Yoav Gallant, a wanted man, by virtue of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for war crimes, was sacked for being too moderate.

He’s declared that if the fictional ceasefire, as we’ll discuss, collapses, then Israel will no longer differentiate between Lebanon and Hezbollah. He says:

“If the ceasefire collapses, there will be no more exemption for the state of Lebanon. We will enforce the agreement with maximum impact and zero tolerance. If until now we have differentiated between Lebanon and Hezbollah, that will no longer be the case.”

Well to be clear it’s a lie to suggest they’ve been making this distinction already, having committed multiple war crimes and engaged in mass slaughter of civilians. The claim here is that Israel - when committing those war crimes - was actually being restrained. What they’re talking about here is an even more murderous onslaught which will inevitably kill far more civilians. But it’s also an implicit threat to the people of Lebanon: either you take up arms to fight Hezbollah - that is, plunge yourself into a hideous civil war - or we will unleash hell against you. Indeed, Benjamin Netanyahu - also a wanted man by the international criminal court - has previously declared that unless the Lebanese people do this, they face “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Given there are countless other public statements by Israeli leaders and officials committing to perpetrating war crimes, and the media has failed to frame its coverage around those statements, don’t expect it to start now.

It is the Israeli state which trashed a ceasefire deal with Lebanon which, in any case, was a farce from the start. Israel is now, once again, bombing southern Lebanon. This is after a statement by Netanyahu who declares:

"Hezbollah fire at Mt. Dov constitutes a severe violation of the ceasefire, and Israel will respond forcefully. We are determined to continue enforcing the ceasefire and will respond to every Hezbollah violation – minor and major.”

Well, even CNN, a news channel which has repeatedly regurgitated Israeli propaganda, makes clear that this Israeli claim is a nonsense.

So as even CNN report, Israel violated the so-called ceasefire 100 times within five days. I say “so-called ceasefire” because if one side violates it 100 times in 5 days, that’s not a ceasefire: if you take the word seriously that is, ceasefire, not to get pedantic over meaning or anything.

Even the US has kicked over this. According to the Times of Israel:

US special envoy Amos Hochstein reportedly sent a message urging Israel to uphold the agreement. In particular, he cited Israeli drone flights over Beirut, Hebrew media cited Israeli sources as saying.

It should be noted that this US special envoy served in the Israel Defense Forces. This handwringing - as we know - is meaningless, given the US never takes any actual meaningful action.

It’s also reported in the Israeli media that the French state - which is part of the US-led monitoring mechanism overseeing the ceasefire agreement - accused Israel of 52 ceasefire violations.

The absolute absurdity, then, of some of the headlines. According to the Associated Press this weekend, ‘Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon, but tense ceasefire holds’.

Now the reason the ceasefire deal was such a travesty is partly because the ceasefire deal gave space for Israel to attack at will.

Netanyahu had declared when it was agreed that Israel would “maintain full freedom of military action” in Lebanon “with the United States’ full understanding”, and President Biden said the same, declaring: "If Hezbollah or anyone else breaks the deal and poses a direct threat to Israel, then Israel retains the right to self-defence consistent with international law."

Well we’ve seen what this means in practice. Israel’s interpretation of that means being able to unleash mayhem at will. They also sent recorded messages across Lebanon forbidding civilians from returning to their homes in the south.

We’ve seen in the last 14 months how crimes against humanity have been accompanied repeatedly by crimes against the English language. ‘Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon’ and ‘tense ceasefire holds’ are not compatible statements.

Yet when Hezbollah say that it had fired a “warning defensive response” after such violations, that was portrayed as an aggressive attack, with the subsequent Israeli strikes instead portrayed as the response - for example the BBC:

According to the Lebanese authorities, Israel has killed around 4,000 people there. That itself is more than 3 times the number of Israelis killed on 7th October. They have begun replicating the same sorts of heinous crimes there as they committed in Gaza. For example, they have damaged nearly 10% of Lebanon’s hospitals.

Between in the just over a year up to 27th October this year, they killed at least 175 health workers in 82 incidents in Lebanon, as NGO Insecurity Insight detail.

In Gaza, of course, they have killed over 1,000 doctors and nurses. This normalisation of the destruction of healthcare - slaughtering medical staff, destroying hospitals - underlines how Israel’s assault is driving a wider moral collapse.

You can see here an ambulance being destroyed by Israeli soldiers of the 7th brigade who posted it on their private social media accounts

This was uncovered by Younis Tirawi, a Palestinian journalist who does crucial work. he ‘s compiled countless other examples, such as Israeli soldiers joyously setting fire to Lebanese civilian homes, dressing up in the clothes of women who they’ve displaced, or maybe even maimed or killed, and turning the Yarin Medical Clinic in southern Lebanon into a military base. The use of hospitals for military purposes in other words - because every accusation is a confession.

And then there is for example the relentless destruction of religious sites, some of them ancient. That includes the mausoleum of Saint Peter, the Apostle of Christ, in southern Lebanon, 2,000 years old, destroyed by Israel.

It is worth noting that we sometimes hear the cheerleaders of Israel discuss how Christians are persecuted in the Middle East, only when they point the finger at Muslims, but Israel of course drove Palestinian Christians from their homes in the Nakba which accompanied the country’s foundation, and have subjected them to horrors ever since, including attacks on their religious sites in Gaza and the murder of their people.

The fact is Israel has already committed grave war crimes in Lebanon, and it has promised to commit even graver war crimes. Thanks to its US patrons, it had a ceasefire rigged in its favour, and then systematically broke that ceasefire anyway.

Much of the Western media will tell you otherwise - but this is the truth.