Israel does not want peace
Since 8 October 2023, Israel has targeted Lebanon, in particular the south, claiming to be attacking Hezbollah ‘terrorists’ but waging the same style of war as that on Gaza. This policy accelerated at the beginning of August 2024 and, following the so-called pager attacks, Israel waged war on the whole of Lebanon: flights at the speed of sound, threats to airspace, widespread bombing in popular and populated neighbourhoods in both the north and the south. The aim was clear: to create the conditions for a civil war in order to bring about a regime change that would be more favourable to Israel.
A fragile ceasefire and no halt in Gaza
The initial conditions of the ceasefire included an end to the offensive in Gaza: these clauses are no longer demanded by Hezbollah, which has agreed to withdraw north of the Litani River. Israel did not really have to withdraw since its offensive never succeeded in establishing a lasting position in southern Lebanon.
The temporary ceasefire offers respite to the Lebanese people who had fled the south because of the bombardments. Several thousand people returned to the south of the country to find their villages and homes devastated. The damage is extremely extensive: dozens of villages almost completely razed to the ground, infrastructures devastated and another 4,000 deaths to be deplored. All this for a temporary and fragile ceasefire, since several violations of the agreement (52 in total, at the time of writing) by Israel have been recorded. For the moment, there has been no escalation, but it is to be feared that this will only be temporary.
Indeed, in operational terms, Netanyahu was somewhat forced into a ceasefire: an army of exhausted reservists, no victory either tactically (on the ground) or politically in Lebanon and an expectation of rearmament.
Nevertheless, the Gaza front was not interrupted at all. The massacres in the north of Gaza continue amid general indifference and blindness. Particularly since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed 192 journalists in Gaza. The death of aid workers from the American charity World Central Kitchen, which caused a scandal in April, has this time gone unnoticed by the media.
Destabilisation of the region
UNRWA has decided to halt all deliveries of humanitarian trucks through the northern entrance to Gaza. The UN organisation accuses Israel of allowing armed gangs to attack the lorries, either by demanding ransoms or by stealing the goods directly. Some of these groups have clashed with Hamas. Hamas accuses the Israeli army of complacency with the thieves. The disastrous consequence is that the whole of northern Gaza is left to fend for itself without any means of subsistence. Even if a Hamas delegation was received in Cairo to resume ceasefire negotiations in Gaza, it is clear that Israel has no intention of stopping the destruction and massacres.
Israel has profoundly destabilised the region. Palestine, Lebanon, but also Syria, with renewed fighting between armed factions in the Aleppo region. For decades, the presence of the colony in Palestine has been the main cause of instability in this region of the Middle East. It is high time for this breathless and increasingly dangerous colonial state to collapse and become a state free of apartheid, occupation and military expansionism.
5 December 23024
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
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