Who can be surprised that the Israeli army would target peacekeepers in southern Lebanon? The fire that wounded two Sri Lankan soldiers on October 11 followed an initial incident, a day earlier, in which two Indonesian soldiers were also wounded. The Israeli army has denied any intentionality, but the strikes occurred amid an offensive against the Shiite militia group Hezbollah for which the Israeli army seems to have set no limits.
Just like in Gaza over the past year, Israel has always used the presence of a Hezbollah military or political leader to justify the most deadly bombings, while reducing the price paid by the civilians also present in the area to mere collateral damage. International humanitarian law is being eroded before our very eyes under these powerful blows, which, moreover, have been delivered by an elected government that is militarily supported by the United States.
No one is denying Israel's right to defend itself. Hezbollah has exposed Lebanon, through an adventurist policy that the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants did not choose, from the day after October 7, 2023, when it fired its first rockets into Israeli territory in solidarity with Hamas, which had just perpetrated the worst civilian massacres in Israel's history. These strikes must stop, so that tens of thousands of displaced Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel. Yet the million displaced Lebanese people, driven out of the south and camping out in appalling conditions, in a country that was already teetering on a razor's edge, politically paralyzed and economically exhausted, are no less entitled to return home.
The Israeli authorities, however, seem less interested in a ceasefire, about which Washington has said little, than in the opportunity to settle old scores, or even the temptation to reshape the region by force, and by force alone. In his latest statements, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his provocations, threatening Lebanon with the same fate wrought on the Gaza Strip, which has been reduced to a bloody field of ruins, if the Lebanese do not revolt against the Shiite militia group, an armed proxy of Iran. Israel's track record in Lebanon, over the past half-century, speaks for itself.
This hubris is worrying. In the recent past, the Middle East has already experienced misguided practices born of the feeling of military omnipotence – a hammer that turns everything into a nail. On the diplomatic front, this hubris is reflected in the stigmatization of anything associated with the United Nations. However, their agencies are tirelessly trying to prevent the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, where humanitarian aid is restricted by Israel despite its total control – which has given it the status of an occupying power, with all its attendant duties – from definitively getting out of control.
From the unfettered colonization of the occupied West Bank, to the ongoing wars reaching all the way to the heart of Beirut, as well as the embargo that has stifled Gaza for 17 years (without weakening Hamas in the slightest), Israel has continued to act with impunity, in defiance of the law. Yet the result should raise questions.
Le Monde
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.