Israel has forcibly displaced nearly 100,000 people in Lebanon over the course of just a few days, the UN has reported as Israeli forces appear to be gearing up for a ground invasion of Lebanon.
Just since Monday, at least 90,530 people in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Wednesday. Israel has ordered evacuations in wide swaths of Lebanon and bombarded civilian areas that Israeli officials claim, without evidence, are sites for militant activity — a claim that Israel has also used to justify bombing homes, schools, refugee camps and hospitals in Gaza.
In all, over 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since October, according to OCHA, as Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged bombs across the border, with the vast majority of the bombs coming from Israeli forces. Nearly 40,000 of the newly displaced people are now being housed across 283 shelters, the UN reported.
Israeli strikes have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon so far, after dozens were killed and thousands injured by a coordinated device explosion attack by Israel last week.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad reported that on Wednesday alone, Israel killed at least 51 people in airstrikes and injured 223 more, with the death toll rising throughout the day. In just the two days prior, Israel killed at least 569 people, including 50 children, and injured at least 1,835.
Two of the people killed on Monday were UN Refugee Agency workers, the group reported. Israel has killed and wounded several UN workers in Lebanon in the past year, and has killed hundreds of humanitarian workers in its genocide in Gaza.
Israel is preparing to even further intensify its attacks. The Israeli military is calling up reservists, and the chief of staff Herzi Halevi told soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a potential ground invasion, in which they would “go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy their infrastructure.” He said that the nonstop bombings of the region are, in part, to “prepare the ground” for their entry.
Israeli officials have declared a supposed goal for their Lebanon attacks of allowing Israeli residents who have fled attacks in the north to return, totalling about 67,000 people.
So far, Israel has deployed many of the same tactics in Lebanon as in its genocide in Gaza, like relentless bombings of civilian areas and ethnic cleansing through mass evacuation orders.
As such, a ground invasion of Lebanon could have devastating consequences similar to those in Gaza, which Israeli forces invaded shortly after Israel began carpet bombing Gaza last October. Now, less than a year later, the Israeli military is occupying the vast majority of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has fired hundreds of bombs into Lebanon in the past few days. Hezbollah has responded with a few dozen strikes, the vast majority of them being intercepted by Israeli forces. According to the Israeli military, one missile went as far as Tel Aviv, marking the first time a projectile from Lebanon had reached as far as central Israel.
U.S. President Joe Biden has claimed that his administration supports de-escalation in the region, but has continued to back Israel at every turn and has refused to stop arming its military in spite of international and domestic law.
International experts are warning that, not only is the U.S. facilitating a genocide by enabling Israel, it is also disrupting world order and underming the very foundations of international law. In an address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Lebanon now stands “at the brink” of ruin due to Israel’s aggression.
“The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable,” Guterres said.
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