Tag: Lebanon

Greater Middle East
Lebanon

Celebration and sorrow in Lebanon; no respite for Gaza

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be holding, with the US/France-brokered deal prompting thousands of displaced Lebanese civilians to head for their homes in the south. While there were celebrations on the road, so many homes, businesses and lives have been destroyed that the return is also marred by sorrow—with bodies still under the rubble of buildings flattened by Israel’s bombs. The days before the deal were particularly devastating, with Israel levelling an apartment block in central Beirut, reportedly killing at least 29 people. Both sides have traded accusations of violating the truce, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. The next 60 days, during which both Hezbollah and Israel are set to withdraw from south Lebanon, will be crucial. While US President Joe Biden hopes to use this momentum to push for a deal in Gaza, no clear progress has been made on that front—meaning there is still no respite for civilians there. Israel is intensifying its bombardment in central Gaza, where medics say its military killed at least 26 people on the day after the Lebanon deal began, and aid—already mostly blockaded by Israel—is reportedly now being looted on a large scale with impunity. (Image via Flickr)

Syria
Syria rebels

Syria: rebel forces launch new offensive on Aleppo

In the most significant escalation in Syria since a 2020 ceasefire instated under emergency conditions during the COVID pandemic, rebel forces in northwestern Idlib province  launched a surprise offensive on the country’s most populous city, Aleppo. The rebel advance is said to have penetrated the perimeter of the city, which had been held for years by rebel forces before it was retaken by the regime with the help of Russian air power in 2016. Russia has responded to the new offensive with fresh air-strikes on Idlib, which has been coming under intermittent Russian bombardment for years. At least 225 fatalities are reported in the new fighting, including some 25 civilians killed in Russian air-strikes. (Photo: Syrian Observer)

Palestine
Mawasi

UN: Israeli attacks on medical facilities are war crimes

A UN report documented Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel in the Gaza Strip in violation of international human rights law, calling the attacks war crimes and crimes against humanity. Citing the World Health Organization, the report states that between October 7, 2023 and July 30, 2024, Israel engaged in “498 attacks on health care facilities in the Gaza Strip,” with 747 people killed, 969 injured, and 110 facilities affected. The report—written by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—also condemned Israeli treatment of detainees, citing instances of abuse, torture, sexual assault, and arbitrary detention. (Photo: Mohamed Solaimane/TNH)

Planet Watch
anthropocene

Ranting against the apocalypse II

With Lebanon under bombardment and the world awaiting Israel’s response to the Iranian missile attacks on its territory, fears mount that Iran’s nuclear facilities could be targeted—which, in addition to being an environmental disaster in its own right, could represent the crossing of a moral threshold toward the use of nuclear weapons. So two theaters of the world conflict—the Middle East and Ukraine—now constitute a looming nuclear threat. Meanwhile, the other horsemen of the apocalypse continue their relentless advance—climate change, cyber-based disinformation and the ultimate replacement of humanity by artificial intelligence. In Episode 246 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg looks for glimmers of hope in emerging signs of human resistance—such as the East Coast dockworkers’ strike, which is demanding a ban on all automation at the ports. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Greater Middle East
syria

Iran cites international law in attack on Israel

Iran launched scores of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory, in what it described as an exercise of its “legitimate right to self-defense under the UN Charter.” In a statement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the attacks aimed to avenge the deaths of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and IRGC general Abbas Nilforoushan. Gen. Nilforoushan was apparently killed in the same strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in which Nasrallah was slain. The Iranian attacks came hours after Israel announceda ground incursion into Lebanon, and as UN experts warned of the dire consequences of regional hostilities. (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East
Beirut

Lebanon: humanitarian crisis under Israeli bombardment

UN officials warn of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as death tolls mount from Israeli air-strikes. Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres told the Security Council: “Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation.” Human Rights Watch has called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes have killed at least 700 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of four days. The UN Refugee Agency reveals that some 90,000 Lebanese residents had been displaced. (Photo: UNICEF/Dar Al Mussawir via UN News)

Europe
Lebanon

Lebanon, Cyprus violate rights of Syrian refugees: HRW

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Lebanon and Cyprus of violating the human rights of Syrian refugees with indirect financial support from the European Union. In a new report, HRW details how both countries have intercepted and forcibly returned refugees to Syria in a coordinated effort to prevent them from seeking asylum in Europe. According to the rights organization, Syrian refugees who tried to leave Lebanon by boat were intercepted by the Lebanese army and then expelled to Syria. Meanwhile, the Cypriot Coast Guard intercepted refugees who managed to reach Cyprus, sending them back to Lebanon, where they often faced immediate deportation to Syria. (Photo of Lebanon coast via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East
Gaza

Ceasefire talks, as Gaza death toll crosses 40,000

A fresh round of ceasefire negotiations got underway in Doha, Qatar, aiming to bring an end to Israel’s more than 10-month-long war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the estimated 115 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Forty-one of the hostages are believed to be dead, and the recorded death toll from Israel’s military campaign has now reached over 40,000, according to health authorities in the Strip. That’s roughly 2% of Gaza’s pre-war population—or one out of every 50 residents—that has been killed. (Photo: WAFA via Jurist)

Greater Middle East
Golan Heights

Podcast: flashpoint Golan Heights

In Episode 237 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides some under-reported context for the international crisis that has quickly spiraled since last week’s deadly rocket strike on a Golan Heights village, and now threatens to escalate to the unthinkable. Under international law, the Golan is Syrian territory not Israeli. And the kids who were killed in the rocket strike were Druze not Jews. Most of the Druze residents of the Golan have refused Israeli citizenship and remain loyal to Syria. Only one country on Earth recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan—the USA, thanks to Donald Trump. Israel has a complicated history with the Druze, going back well before the occupation of the Golan in 1967. But the origins of the current trajectory toward regional war in a massacre of Druze youth points again to how peoples on the ground are exploited as pawns and propaganda in the cynical Great Power game. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Freedom’s Falcon via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East
syria

Regional war looms closer after Golan rocket strike

Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility, asserting that a projectile from Israel’s own Iron Dome missile defense system hit the village amid strikes on military targets elsewhere in the area by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed organization. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading strikes over the Lebanese border since Oct. 8, a day after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has killed 527 people in Lebanon since then, according to an AFP tally, including at least 104 civilians. Israel says 23 of its civilians and 17 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah rocket-fire over this period. (Image: Pixabay)

North America
Kent State

Podcast: Four dead in Ohio. And two in Mississippi.

As the police crackdown on the Gaza protests continues coast-to-coast—drawing concern from Amnesty International—Bill Weinberg notes that this repression comes in the month marking the 54th anniversary of slayings of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State University in Mississippi. With police now unleashing violence on student protesters in Paris, Amsterdam and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon, there is an unsettling sense of deja vu. In Episode 225 of the CounterVortex podcast, Weinberg warns that the world could be headed toward an historical moment that rhymes with May 1970. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Kent State University Libraries via Britannica)