Israel’s War in South Lebanon Never Ended

Even now, over a year after the Lebanese Resistance entered into the war on October 9, villagers are still searching for their loved ones amidst the rubble of their homes. In the town of Aitaroun, which shares the northern border with occupied Palestine, locals buried over 100 people on February 28 in a large procession attended by Lebanese citizens across south Lebanon. Israel, unsatisfied with massacring Lebanese citizens, is also killing animals that serve as a source of income for southern villagers. In Hadatha, three families were left devastated after an Israeli attack killed 6 cows that provided their community with fresh milk. A fundraiser for these families explains that these are women-led households, which have now been left with nothing. “[Their] homes, livelihoods, and hopes have been shattered by recent indiscriminate bombing.”

As the ceasefire in Gaza collapses, solely due to Israel’s starvation campaign and the most recent massacre of over 400 Palestinians in a single night—among them at least 174 children—there are new fears that a hot war will reignite in Lebanon. A young man working for a relief organization in Lebanon providing food and medical aid to displaced southerners, Mustafa, tells Splinter that things are not stable. “No matter what the Trump administration is telling Americans, and no matter what the mediators are telling the public. What the people must understand is that their governments are lying to them. There is no ceasefire.” From Israeli airstrikes to attacks by Syrian Hay’at al Tahrir (HTS) forces on Lebanese tribespeople, “the entire war on us can reignite with something smaller than a speck of dust. It doesn’t take much for Israel to find a reason, or no reason at all, to wage an open war on us again.”

Walking through devastated villages like al Khiyam, one can’t help but internalize the troubling reality that the war never ended for the people of South Lebanon. While Beirut exists in a state of relative calm in comparison, drone strikes continue in the south and their victims are still being collected and buried, sometimes in pieces. The Lebanese government, elements of which have allowed Israel and the United States to extend the so-called ceasefire, refuse to respond to attacks on Lebanese sovereignty, and so the people now wait for whatever will come next. Mustafa, who often works from dawn until dusk even during Ramadan, says that they are preparing for the worst with hope in their hearts. “Amidst the rubble of their homes, villagers are still breaking their fasts together. Our communities know that while they may be abandoned by their government, they have God, our resistance, and one another to rely on, and that is sufficient enough for us. The occupier will never show us mercy, but God’s mercy is sufficient.”

The plight of the people of Gaza and Lebanon is a collective one—their deaths are earmarked by the same American weaponry. Efforts to rebuild both communities are being violently stymied by a new American regime that has inherited and expanded a war that continues to claim lives in an unashamed effort to further broaden American imperialism in the region. Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah, who worked in Gaza during the genocide, explains this truth with pointed clarity: “The moronic idea that Trump is a war hating fascist was laid to rest with the dead children of Gaza. This is America’s genocide.”