Intense bombing by Israel is displacing hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon. Hundreds of people have died, and Lebanese authorities has said one million others have been displaced since September 23. Othman Belbeisi, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Middle East and North Africa director said:
With this wave of displacement, we see huge needs… the situation is devastating. Lebanon needs more support. What has been offered so far is minimal and does not match the needs.
The IOM has “verified and tracked” some 690,000 internally displaced people in Lebanon, Belbeisi said, noting about 400,000 others had reportedly fled the country, many of them for neighbouring Syria.
Around a quarter of the displaced in Lebanon, or more than 185,000 people, are in official shelters such as schools, according to the IOM.
Around another a quarter have rented accommodation, while some 47% are living in “host settings”, the IOM said.
UN aid appeal to counter Israel’s assault
Many people are staying with relatives, while some with nowhere to go are sleeping on the streets.
The UN has appealed for $426 million to address the humanitarian crisis in the country over the next three months, including $32 million for the IOM to assist some 400,000 people.
UN humanitarian agency OCHA said Friday the appeal was just 12% funded, with $51 million received.
We are appalled by sweeping inflammatory language on multiple sides.
Recent language threatening Lebanese people as a whole and calling on them to either rise up against Hezbollah or face destruction like Gaza, risks being understood as encouraging or accepting violence directed against civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international law.
She also decried as “unacceptable” the “ongoing denigration of the UN, in particular UNRWA”, the UN agency supporting nearly six million Palestinian refugees spread across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel have also fired at UN Peacekeeper headquarters in Lebanon.
Have we learned nothing?
However, whilst we don’t necessarily disagree with these remarks, have these people been paying attention to anything Israel has done over the last year?
Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians have often spat out goading and inflammatory remarks.
Israel have repeatedly bombed UN workers, aid workers, schools, and hospitals in Palestine. Now that they’ve turned their attentions to bombing Lebanon in earnest, we’re starting to see the same thing play out. But, we can’t forget another crucial factor that has enabled Israel to do their worst in Palestine: corporate Western media doesn’t care about the atrocities Israel is committing.
Amal Saad, an expert in Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera:
We can’t compare the severity of [south Lebanon] with Gaza, because what Gaza is going through is historically unprecedented and it is a genocide.
But it does look like Israel is adapting tactics that it used in Gaza. [The campaign] is still less than Gaza because what’s happening in [Lebanon] is not ethnic cleansing, yet. It’s not genocidal, yet.
But it could head there.
Academic Assal Rad shared headlines showing a continuation of pointed silence from mainstream media:
Israel just bombed a residential building in central Beirut killing and injuring over 130 people at least. Look how Western media tries to cover this up.
-Don’t mention Israel
-Cast doubt
-Justify with assassination storyYou have to see it, you have to see it’s all by design. pic.twitter.com/LYI7NxaK3L
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 10, 2024
Just as Israel claim they’re targeting Hamas in Palestine while bombing children and hospitals, corporate media are now falling into line with Israeli lies about Hezbollah.
As the Canary has repeatedly asked over the last year: even if you accept that Israel has a right to target Hamas or Hezbollah, does that mean Israel has the right to kill indiscriminately? To tear children to shreds, to bomb hospitals and schools, to cause terror amongst fleeing people?
The headlines shown above are enabling Israel’s actions in Lebanon, just as the same outlets manufactured consent for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
Journalist Laila Al-Arian shared a screenshot of a New York Times quiz about Lebanon:
This is in such poor taste I don’t even know even know what to say anymore https://t.co/NvKTkWBpiO
— Laila Al-Arian (@LailaAlarian) September 27, 2024
How depraved, how morally bankrupt to turn Israel’s terror in Lebanon into a silly little pop quiz.
Rad shared another set of screenshots making the distinction that Israel is not bombing Hezbollah, but Lebanon:
This is the same framing that Israel has used (and the media parrots) to justify the slaughter in Gaza. Indiscriminate bombing that kills hundreds and injures over a thousand people in one day is not a targeted attack.
Israel isn’t “striking Hezbollah” they are bombing Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/22ZhRrtXMQ
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) September 23, 2024
Journalism as usual on Lebanon
It’s no accident that Israel knows it can bring out the same set of excuses for its indiscriminate bombing in Lebanon. They’re following the playbook they’ve used for decades on Palestine, and journalists in the West are lapping it up.
Journalists have a duty to speak truth to power, and to challenge narratives. The fucking least they can do is not simply parrot the words of warmongers. Apparently, that’s too much to ask for.
But, make no mistake – Israel couldn’t carry out its path of destruction without the aid of mainstream media.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English
