[🇱🇧] Lebanon - Israel Conflict -2024

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Israeli offensive in Lebanon is "destroying the country," Lebanese minister tells CNN​

From CNN's Niamh Kennedy in London and staff in Abu Dhabi

Lebanese Economy Minister Amin Salam participates in an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2022.
Mohamed Azakir/Reuters/File

Israel’s offensive in Lebanon is “destroying the country,” Lebanese Economy Minister Amin Salam told CNN.

Salam condemned Thursday morning’s strike on central Beirut, the first in that part of the city since 2006, highlighting how Israel is striking increasingly close to civilian areas.

“This has gone far and beyond what happened in 2006,” Salam told CNN’s Eleni Giokos, pointing out that the strike was carried out less than two miles from the Government Palace.

Salam warned that the displacement of over 1 million Lebanese and Syrian people from Lebanon will be a “long-term issue” for the government to manage, even if a ceasefire went into effect.

“We have hospitals filled with people, schools filled with people, people sleeping on the street, and this war keeps going. The way I see it is that this war has no goal. It’s just destroying the country,” Salam said.

“We need to rebuild their towns, their villages. We need to provide peaceful conditions for them. So, we are really in a very complicated operation now to take care of all those people,” the minister added.

 

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A dangerous Middle East crisis​

It’s hard to imagine a more unwelcome intangible a few weeks from an election than a security crisis in the Middle East, a region that has confounded American presidents for decades.

Following Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon and its assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the region has been on even more of a knife-edge after months of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which followed the October 7 Hamas terror attacks. The US and its allies helped repel Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel this week, but attention has now shifted to Israel’s response following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning to Tehran that nowhere is out of reach from Israeli forces.

Netanyahu’s supporters in Israel and the United States are urging him to take advantage of a moment of weakness for the Islamic Republic after Israeli forces’ success in taking out key leaders of Iranian proxy groups. Netanyahu raised expectations of another escalation by warning that Iran made a big mistake with its reprisal attacks and “will pay for it.”

But Biden on Wednesday took the highly unusual step of publicly warning Israel against any attempt to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. “The answer is no,” he said when questioned about such a potential operation, and said the US would be discussing with the Israelis about how they might respond.

But Biden’s problem is that Netanyahu has acquired a taste for ignoring US concerns about his actions in Gaza and Lebanon. This has damaged the administration’s authority. But the Israeli leader has also acted with the expectation that Washington will be forced to come to Israel’s defense in any case.

There’s also a significant political dimension to the worsening tensions. Trump and his allies are egging Netanyahu on — both because of ideological synergy with his far-right government and also perhaps because a sense of growing crisis could boost the former president’s hopes of winning a non-consecutive second term. And Israel’s military moves, which have led to thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon, also threaten to widen splits in the Democratic Party over the failure of Harris and Biden to restrain Netanyahu. Some community leaders, for example, warn of depressed progressive and Arab American turnout in key swing states, including Michigan, next month.

 

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It's unclear how long Israel's ground incursions in Lebanon will last, State Department says​

State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller speaks to the media during a briefing on Thursday, October 3.

The United States and Israel have had discussions about what comes after Israel’s incursions in Lebanon, but it’s not clear how long the military actions on the ground will last, according to the State Department.

“I’m not going to prejudge what’s going to happen. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Dare I say, the Israelis probably don’t know what’s going to happen at this point,” said Matt Miller, State Department spokesperson. “We’re going to watch as this unfolds, and we’ll make our assessments in real time.”

Miller would not say if the Israelis have an end game for the conflict in the north, as they ramp up cross-border incursions and Beirut strikes against Hezbollah.

“The Israelis will have to speak to that question, not me,” he said.

Despite Miller’s vague answers when it comes to any clarity US officials have received about Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah, the spokesperson said for now, the US is fully supportive of Israel’s efforts to target Hezbollah with “targeted objectives” aimed at the militant group’s infrastructure.

“We want to see a diplomatic resolution, but we do want to see Hezbollah’s capabilities degraded,” Miller said

 

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Israel will continue to strike Hezbollah targets in Beirut, military chief says​

From CNN’s Rob Picheta and Eugenia Yosef

The Israeli military said it is going to continue striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon.

Herzi Halevi, the chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said in a video message Thursday that the military is “determined to destroy” Hezbollah infrastructure near the Lebanese border and will continue to inflict damage against the militant group.

Halevi said returning residents near the border to their homes “means destroying the terrorist infrastructure that Hezbollah has built near the border so they could raid our communities and kill Israeli civilians when given the order.”

“We are very determined to destroy this infrastructure and eliminate anyone present there. We will not allow Hezbollah to establish itself in these places,” the military chief said.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of embedding weapons facilities beneath residential buildings in Beirut, while Israeli political leaders have become increasingly defiant of international calls for restraint and outrage over growing civilian casualties in Lebanon and Gaza.

Halevi said in his video message that Israeli troops “are more prepared and trained than ever, bearing the experience from the operations in Gaza, and their advantage in the combat arena is clear.”

 

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G7 leaders warn of 'uncontrollable escalation' in Middle East
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The leaders of the G7 have outlined their concern over the "deteriorating situation" in the Middle East.

The joint statement issued today read: "We, the leaders of the G7, express deep concern over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and condemn in the strongest terms Iran's direct military attack against Israel, which constitutes a serious threat to regional stability."

The statement also reaffirmed the group's commitment to the security of Israel and condemned what it called Iran's "destabilising actions throughout the Middle East through terrorist proxies and armed groups".

Discussions to avoid escalation in the region have also taken place, the G7 leaders said, adding: " A dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fuelling uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East, which is in no-one's interest. Therefore, we call on all regional players to act responsibly and with restraint."

 

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What might happen next with conflict in the Middle East? 10 experts share their analysis​

BBC

On 1 October, Israel began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Shortly afterwards, Iran launched more than 180 missiles towards Israel.

With the war in Gaza still ongoing, fears of an all-out regional conflict in the Middle East remain high.

How big a danger is this threat of further escalation? For BBC InDepth, we asked a range of experts to share their analysis of why the conflict has escalated, and what might happen next.

Israel seems to have upgraded its goals from weakening Hezbollah to enforce a ceasefire deal that secures Israel’s north, to seeking to neutralise Hezbollah permanently. Despite inflicting huge losses on Hezbollah, Israel’s military campaign won’t make Hezbollah disappear.

It’s hard to know the difference between government rhetoric and what it will do on the ground. What they say they’re doing is removing the threat of Hezbollah to protect civilians in Northern Israel who live in sovereign territory and need to return after being displaced for a year as a result of ongoing rocket fire from Hezbollah, who joined the fight with Hamas after October 7. But this government also has religious forces setting forth, not a strategy, but a cosmic vision of conquest. And therefore we can’t rule out that there may be an expansionist ethos.

 

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Israel would like the Lebanese state to reassert authority over Hezbollah. This reminds me of the 1982 Israeli ground war in Lebanon against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. That didn’t turn out so well in the long-term for Israeli citizens living near the Lebanese border. Israel in this case will need to focus on the short-term gain of calming the situation enough that its displaced 60,000 residents of northern Israel can return to their homes.

 

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Has this already started to redraw the map of the Middle East? If so, how?​

The balance of power in the Middle East is beginning to shift in a way that is weakening Iran’s influence in the region. But any such change in the status quo is a process that will take a long time to materialise.

It’s too soon to reach that conclusion, but what’s certain is the Iran-led axis is reeling and Israel seems to have achieved some significant tactical gains. Whether it can translate those to strategic gains through diplomacy remains to be seen.

Not the map, but the power balance for sure. For the past 20 years, Iran and its proxies (Hamas and Hezbollah) on one side and Israel on the other have held each other to a draw, meaning there was mutual deterrence. That was shattered on 7 October, and Israel is trying to get the upper hand.