The Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom register our profound concern regarding the interruption of education and the damage to Lebanese educational facilities as a result of the intensified Israeli military campaign which began in September 2024. Widespread aerial bombardments across Lebanon combined with a ground invasion in the south have killed more than 4,000 people, of whom at least 316 are children, and injured 16,500, of whom 1,456 are children.[1] The ceasefire announced on 27 November 2024 is a welcome development, but the damage to the education sector will have lasting effects. It remains far from clear whether the ceasefire will be sustainable or whether its terms will protect Lebanese educational facilities, scholars, researchers and students from ongoing Israeli attacks.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) mandated that education facilities, including universities and schools, close on 24 September 2024. The beginning of the school year was then postponed from 14 October to 4 November 2024 for public schools; however, private schools were granted permission to start the academic year using either online or in-person formats, with each school bearing the risk associated with its chosen methods. Over 1,177 facilities, including schools, were transformed into shelters to house the more than 1.3 million people displaced from South Lebanon and South Beirut. Even in the cases of schools that were able to continue providing instruction, traveling to them was a safety risk for students and staff.

Similar to the situation in primary and secondary schools, instruction and related educational activities at universities were suspended between 28 September and 6 October 2024. In early October, the MEHE announced that over 80,000 university students had been displaced. Many universities resorted to online instruction to continue the academic year. Further, as the Israeli bombardments damaged over 50 hospitals and killed health workers, university hospitals had to expand their health care provision. Teachers and students in medical school were redirected to support this expansion. The American University of Beirut, the largest private sector employee in Lebanon, reported that half of its students had been displaced and a further 700 had become homeless. Université Saint Joseph de Beirut reported that 20% of its staff and one third of its students had been displaced.

Educational facilities located in South Beirut were under consistent threat of aerial bombardment. According to the Beirut Urban Lab, 78% of the schools, universities and vocational institutes in that area were in the vicinity of announced Israeli air strikes. Particularly in Haret Hreik, Azad University was within the area of 27 strikes and Al-Afak Institute was in the area of another 24 strikes.

The Lebanese University, the only public university in Lebanon, was severely impacted by the Israeli military campaign. Its main campus in Hadath in South Beirut, which houses many core faculties, was damaged in an air strike on 9 November 2024. Approximately 30,000 students at the Lebanese University were displaced. In response, the university implemented an emergency plan to provide temporary housing for displaced staff and students, launched online registration and teaching, implemented programmes to pay students fees, and provided psychosocial support. Facilities across Lebanese University branches have further been used to house displaced members of the university.

University communities are also grieving the deaths of students, scholars and staff—from Lebanese University, Lebanese American University, American University of Beirut, Université Sainte Famille Batroun, Phoenicia University, and the University of Sciences and Arts Lebanon, who were killed as a result of Israeli attacks since September 2024.

As described above, the higher education sector faces extreme hardship as it contemplates continuing the academic year. Additionally, revenue shortfalls from tuition fees and the interruption of research activities will impact the future work and sustainability of these institutions. The National Erasmus+ Office in Lebanon, which supports capacity building in higher education, has further reported that foreign staff and students have begun to leave the country. Concurrently, there are fears that Lebanese students may look abroad for higher education opportunities as international scholarships become increasingly available. This will further adversely affect the sustainability of higher education in Lebanon.

The right to education is an internationally protected human right, and educational institutions are protected under international law including under Article 94 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 13 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Israeli military attacks in Lebanon, including on educational facilities and their environs, are direct infringements on these rights and protections, as well as on academic freedom. We express solidarity with our colleagues in Lebanon and urge international organizations to support Lebanese educational institutions as they resume their important activities and rebuild their sector.

Lebanon’s parliament elected a new president on January 9 after a two-year political deadlock and 13 failed attempts. Joseph Aoun met the threshold for victory in the second round of voting after his rival, a Hezbollah-backed candidate called Suleiman Frangieh, withdrew from the race.

In his inaugural speech to parliament, President Aoun outlined a series of pledges to deal with the overlapping crises that have brought Lebanon to the point of collapse. However, delivering on these promises will be immensely challenging.

Aoun’s presidential victory is remarkable. He did not publicly campaign for the job, and none of the political parties sponsored him as their favoured presidential candidate. So, how did Aoun emerge to win the presidency?

Rather than an established scion of the political class, Aoun is a career soldier, serving as the commander of Lebanon’s army since 2017. Lebanon’s army, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), is a rare example of an institution that is widely seen as a unifying symbol in Lebanon.

Aoun effectively stopped the army from being dragged into the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, despite the deaths of over 40 LAF soldiers, and he played a decisive role in overseeing a 60-day ceasefire deal brokered by the US and France in November.

The main backers of Aoun’s presidential bid were a loose network of regional and international players, including the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These states all view Aoun as their best hope of maintaining the brittle ceasefire, while also overseeing the restoration of Lebanon’s national government.

They have used their leverage by making the delivery of economic aid to Lebanon contingent on the main political factions electing Aoun.

The election of Aoun provides further evidence of the weakening power of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah has suffered several political and economic reversals over recent years.

In the 2022 general election, Hezbollah and its allies lost their parliamentary majority. And then, in 2024, Israel appears to have weakened Hezbollah’s military machine, including killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and several senior figures.

The recent ousting of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has also deprived Hezbollah of a powerful ally, while the group’s main backer, Iran, is in no position to maintain its level of funding. Iran’s capacity to support Hezbollah has reduced significantly due to international sanctions spearheaded by the US to prevent the regime in Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

“Joseph Aoun,” Digital based on a public domain photo, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic / IbisPaint, 2024

Lebanon’s former president, Michel Aoun (not related to Joseph Aoun) was a longtime ally of Hezbollah. The group had hoped it could install another ally into the presidential palace by supporting the candidacy of Frangieh. But Frangieh withdrew from the race and, alongside a number of other lawmakers, announced his backing for Aoun.

In his first speech as president, Aoun stated: “My mandate will emphasise the state’s right to monopolise arms.” Although Aoun did not name Hezbollah directly, his words were understood to mean that he would seek to disarm the group. Hezbollah parliamentarians sat silent while most MPs applauded Aoun’s statement.

Off to a good start

Aoun has charged his presidency with several lofty ambitions. But these ambitions will prove difficult to deliver. The power of the presidency has strict limitations owing to its largely symbolic figurehead status.

The position of president is primarily to service Lebanon’s power-sharing system. This system provides guarantees of representation in parliament to 18 sect communities. To ensure that no group can monopolise political power, the role of president is reserved for Maronite Christians, while the prime minister must be from the Sunni Muslim community and the speaker of the house is Shia.

President Aoun has pledged to reform the power-sharing government. Survey evidence indicates that Lebanon’s government has the lowest level of trust in the Middle East. The Lebanese power-sharing system is prone to dysfunctional political institutions, policy deadlock and periodic rounds of collapse. Power-sharing politicians are known for corruption and vote buying.

Aoun is off to a good start. A few days after his appointment, he convened parliament to elect a new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, the current head of the International Court of Justice. Salam’s confirmation is a surprise because, like Aoun, he is not seen as patron of any of the major political parties in the country.

The fact that the usual horse-trading between the main parties to agree on a new prime minster did not occur further underscores the weakening of Hezbollah, which was unable to get its preferred candidate, Najib Mikati, back into power. In response to Salam’s appointment, Hezbollah lawmakers accused their political opponents of trying to exclude them and fragmenting the country. Salam has a long history of calling for reform of the state and tackling endemic corruption.

Aoun and Salam now face many challenges in delivering on the hope that many Lebanese feel following their appointments. They will need to form a government as a matter of urgency to create political stability and approve a budget. Lebanon confronts a dire economic situation that the World Bank has identified as among the “most severe crisis episodes seen globally since the mid-19th century”.

A further urgent priority is supervising an extension to the current ceasefire deal with Israel, which comes to an end on January 25. The current agreement requires Israeli troops to withdraw to their side of the border.

With the backing of the army, large sections of the Lebanese population, and powerful international players, Aoun and Salam form a pairing that give realistic hope for a period of sustained stability and reconstruction. But finding a way to build consensus politics in Lebanon will not be easy, especially if the new president and prime minister set a course that brings them into confrontation with Hezbollah.

John Nagle, Professor in Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast and Drew Mikhael, Scholar at Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, Queen’s University Belfast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The dramatic sequence of events that began on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s strike in Israel, has cascaded through the Middle East, toppling regimes and reshaping the region’s fault lines. On the very day Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire halting hostilities in Lebanon, the Syrian militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a bold offensive to capture Aleppo, marking the end of an era for Syria. Earlier this month, the reign of President Bashar al-Assad—a tenure synonymous with repression, conflict, and decay—crumbled under the weight of accumulated resistance.

Syria, long shackled by a Ba’athist dictatorship and scarred by 14 years of brutal civil war, now glimpses a fragile freedom. Yet, the challenges ahead are formidable: sectarian tensions and entrenched divisions could derail the nation’s rebirth. Meanwhile, the upheaval in Syria has laid bare the vulnerability of Tehran’s once formidable “axis of resistance.” For Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the collapse of this network, painstakingly built to project Iranian influence, represents an existential political crisis. The fall of Assad’s regime signals not just a geopolitical shift but also a psychological blow to Iran’s ambitions.

The Middle East, a region perpetually in flux, faces yet another transformation, fraught with uncertainty but also infused with the hope of a new beginning. Hezbollah’s gamble in opening a second front against Israel during the Gaza conflict may go down as one of its gravest miscalculations. The Shia Lebanese movement, heavily supported by Iran, was emboldened to assist Hamas, but misread both the regional dynamics and Israel’s military prowess. By striking along the UN-demarcated Blue Line, Hezbollah stirred a hornet’s nest, and the consequences proved catastrophic.

After nearly a year of skirmishes that uprooted hundreds of thousands, Israel escalated its operations in September, delivering precision blows that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership. The group’s iconic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was among those eliminated in a series of airstrikes that left Hezbollah’s command structure in tatters. On the ground, Israel’s forces drove Hezbollah militants away from the contested border zone, a tactical and symbolic victory for a nation accustomed to perpetual conflict.

By November, Tehran’s calculus shifted. Acknowledging the unsustainable losses, Iran urged its Lebanese ally to seek peace rather than risk further erosion of its capabilities. Reluctantly, Hezbollah acquiesced, agreeing to a ceasefire that handed Israel the upper hand. This episode highlights the limitations of proxy warfare in a region where alliances are tenuous and military missteps can unravel years of carefully constructed influence. For Hezbollah, the toll of this misadventure extends beyond the battlefield, leaving its future—and Tehran’s credibility—irreparably shaken.

“Mired,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic

Iran’s reliance on Hezbollah as a cornerstone of its influence in Syria has long been a strategic necessity. In 2015, the Lebanese group, alongside Russian forces, proved pivotal in rescuing Bashar al-Assad’s regime from the brink of collapse. But the Middle East is a region defined by shifting alliances and resource exhaustion, and neither Iran nor Russia could muster the will—or the means—to defend Damascus.

Tehran, after all, was drained by its proxy war with Israel, and Moscow was deeply entangled in Ukraine. Their absence created a vacuum, which the HTS and the Syrian National Army were quick to exploit. Seizing on Assad’s weakened position, these groups launched an offensive on Aleppo, ostensibly to preempt a regime operation targeting their strongholds in northwest Syria. What unfolded revealed the fragility of Assad’s government. Rife with corruption and demoralization, Syria’s army offered scant resistance. Aleppo fell with startling ease, underscoring just how diminished Assad’s authority had become. Iran and Russia may have propped up Assad in the past, but their inability to save Assad signals a profound weakening of the axis that once anchored Syria’s survival.

Iran faces a sobering recalibration of its regional ambitions. Stripped of direct influence on Israel’s borders, it must rely on proxies in Iraq and its longstanding ties with the Houthi militia in Yemen to project power. Yet, a renewed focus on its nuclear ambitions could be fraught with peril, especially with Donald Trump’s imminent return to office. Trump’s previous strategy of extreme pressure left Tehran with little room to maneuver, and Supreme Leader Khamenei may tread cautiously this time.

Meanwhile, tensions have flared on the Syrian-Israeli frontier. For the first time since 1974, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights to repel an assault on a UN outpost near the Druze village of Khader. By Sunday, Israel had deployed additional troops to secure the buffer zone, aiming to contain Islamist rebel groups and prevent a flood of refugees. It is too early to envision a scenario where Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of HTS, brokers peace with Israel over the contested Golan Heights. Yet, as the Middle East repeatedly proves, the unimaginable has a way of becoming reality.

(The Conversation) – When Hamas strategist Yahya Sinwar ordered the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis, he was planning to deal a mortal blow to an Israel weakened by internal divisions.

Sinwar, killed by Israeli forces in Gaza a year later, likely did not imagine that he was instead setting in motion a cascade of events that would bring down longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and weaken the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” alliance to which Hamas belongs.

Yet to understand the timing of Assad’s fall at the hands of rebels from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (the “Movement for the Liberation of the Levant,” or HTS), we need to consider the war triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel. That conflict has escalated into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, its war with Hezbollah and direct confrontations between Israel and Iran.

As we consider Syria’s future, we must also consider how it might be affected by the ongoing regional war in Gaza.

Gaza war set the HTS wheels in motion

So how is HTS’s stunning advance on Damascus linked to this regional war? HTS forces had planned their offensive six months ago and received tacit approval from Turkey, which shares a northern border with Syria.

At that time, the Lebanese Shi’a militia, Hezbollah, was still deploying thousands of troops in southern Syria to protect the Assad regime. Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, had long viewed Syria as a key link in Iran’s regional alliance because it was a crucial transfer point for Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Any HTS attack at this point would have faced stiff resistance.

Hezbollah, with tens of thousands of trained fighters and an arsenal of well over 100,000 missiles and rockets, was widely considered to be the world’s most powerful non-state army. But Hezbollah — whose daily rocket fire at Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 Israeli citizens — overplayed its hand.

Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah would only stop firing rockets once Israel had reached a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. Suddenly, in September, Israel launched an offensive in which it killed Hezbollah’s military leadership and Nasrallah himself, followed by an invasion into southern Lebanon in which over 3,000 Hezbollah fighters were killed.

On Nov. 27, Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire with Israel and began to withdraw its forces from Syria. That same day, HTS launched its invasion of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.

A weakened Iran

Hezbollah was the capstone of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, a collection of militias in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria backed by Iran’s own military power. But after Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, Israeli airstrikes a few weeks later damaged sensitive military facilities and wiped out Iranian air defences, exposing the country to further attack.

With Hezbollah weakened and Iran’s territory vulnerable, Syria’s Assad regime was the next domino to fall.

Syria fought wars against Israel in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. How will its new government perceive Israel? HTS leader Mohammed al-Julani has said HTS, unlike al-Qaeda or ISIS, will not pursue anti-western violence. HTS praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks and supports the Palestinian cause, but since seizing power, HTS leadership has made no pronouncement specifically about Israel.

On Dec. 8, a group of HTS fighters in Damascus declared they will attack Israel next, but this does not necessarily represent the aims of the broader movement. Hezbollah’s recent battlefield setbacks would presumably deter other armed groups from confronting Israel, at least in the short term.

“New Flag,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

Questionable Israeli, American moves

Yet recent Israeli moves risk starting off relations with a new Syrian government on the wrong foot. As Assad fled Syria on Dec. 7, Israel began waves of airstrikes targeting Syria’s remaining air force, missiles and navy, along with remnants of its chemical weapons program, to deny them to future hostile entities.

The United States similarly launched airstrikes against ISIS targets in northeast Syria. Since Dec. 8, Israel has also seized Syrian territory facing the highly strategic Golan Heights that the Israelis captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The Israeli government claimed this capture of Syrian territory to be a “temporary defensive” move to ensure it would not fall into jihadist hands, but it was condemned by the United Nations and several Arab states.

On Dec. 10, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel does not want to “meddle in Syria’s internal affairs” or provoke war with HTS rebels, but that Israel is prepared to fight if attacked.

But the risk is real that Israel’s pre-emptive moves could spiral into a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby the hostile forces Israeli authorities seek to deter could instead be provoked into attacking Israel.

And although Assad’s fall has struck a serious blow to the Axis of Resistance, it’s possible that weak governments in Lebanon and Jordan could fall next, creating a jihadist axis that would pose an entirely new security challenge to the region.

Daniel L. Douek, Faculty Lecturer, International Relations, McGill University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The agreement is based on the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the previous Israeli assault on Lebanon in 2006. The truce will be enforced by 5,000 to 10,000 Lebanese troops and the UN’s 10,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force, which has operated in that area since 1978 and includes troops from 46 countries. 

The truce has broad international support, including from Iran and Hamas. Israel and Hezbollah were apparently glad to take a break from a war that had become counterproductive for them both. Effective resistance prevented Israeli forces from advancing far into Lebanon, and they were inflicting mostly senseless death and destruction on civilians, as in Gaza, but without the genocidal motivation of that campaign. 

People all over Lebanon have welcomed the relief from Israeli bombing, the destruction of their towns and neighborhoods, and thousands of casualties. In Beirut, people have started returning to their homes. 

In the south, the Israeli military has warned residents on both sides of the border not to return yet. It has declared a new buffer zone (which was not part of the truce agreement) that includes 60 villages north of the border, and has warned that it will attack Lebanese civilians who return to that area. Despite these warnings, thousands of displaced people have been returning to south Lebanon, often to find their homes and villages in ruins.

Many people returning to the south still proudly display the yellow flags of Hezbollah. A flag flying over the ruins of Tyre has the words “Made in the USA” written across it, a reminder that the Lebanese people know very well who made the bombs that have killed and maimed so many thousands of them.

There are already many reports of ceasefire violations. Israel shot and wounded two journalists soon after the truce went into effect, and then, two days after the ceasefire, Israel attacked five towns near the border with tanks, fired artillery across the border and conducted airstrikes on southern Lebanon. On December 2nd, Hezbollah finally retaliated with mortar fire in the disputed Shebaa Farms area, and Israel responded with heavier strikes on two villages, killing eleven people.

An addendum to the truce agreement granted Israel the right to strike at will whenever it believes Hezbollah is violating the truce, giving it what Netanyahu called “complete military freedom of action,” which makes this a precarious and one-sided peace at best.

The prospect for a full withdrawal of both Israeli and Hezbollah forces in 60 days seems slim, since Hezbollah has built large weapons stockpiles in the south that it will not want to abandon, and Netanyahu himself has warned that the truce “can be short.” 

Then there is the danger of confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese military, raising the specter of Lebanon’s bloody civil war, which killed an estimated 150,000 people between 1975 and 1990.

So violence could flare up into full-scale war again at any time, making it unlikely that many Israelis will return to homes near the border with Lebanon, Israel’s original publicly stated purpose for the war.

The truce agreement was brokered by the United States and France, and signed by the European Union, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. France was a colonial power in Lebanon and plays a leading role in UNIFIL, but Israel initially rejected France as a negotiating partner. It seems to have accepted France’s role only when the Macron government agreed not to enforce the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to France.

The U.K. also signed the original truce proposal on November 25th, but doesn’t appear to have signed the final truce agreement. The U.K. seems to have withdrawn from the negotiations under U.S. and Israeli pressure because, unlike France, its new Labour government has publicly stated that it will comply with the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant – although it has not explicitly said it would arrest them.

Netanyahu justified the truce to his own people by saying that it will allow Israeli forces to focus on Gaza and Iran, and only die-hard “security” minister Ben-Gvir voted against the truce in the Israeli cabinet. 

While there were hopes that the truce in Lebanon might set the stage for a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s actions on the ground tell a different story. Satellite images show Israel carrying out new mass demolitions of hundreds of buildings in northern Gaza to build a new road or boundary between Gaza City and North Gaza. This may be a new border to separate the northernmost 17% of Gaza from the rest of the Gaza Strip, so that Israel can expel its people and prevent them from returning, hand North Gaza over to Israeli settlers and squeeze the desperate, starving survivors in Gaza into an even smaller area than before.

And for all who had hopes that the ceasefire in Lebanon might lead to a regional de-escalation, those hopes were dashed in Syria, when, on the very day of the truce, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive. HTS was formerly the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front. It rebranded itself and severed its formal link to al-Qaeda in 2016 to avoid becoming a prime target in the U.S. war in Syria, but the U.S. still brands it as a terrorist group. 

By December 1st, HTS managed to seize control of Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, forcing the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian allies onto the defensive. With Russian and Syrian jets bombing rebel-held territory, the surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent, destabilizing front reopening in the Middle East.

This may also be a prelude to an escalation of attacks on Syria by Israel, which has already attacked Syria more than 220 times since October 2023, with Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments killing at least 296 people. 

The new HTS offensive most likely has covert U.S. support, and may impact Trump’s reported intention to withdraw the 900 U.S. troops still based in Syria. It may also impact his nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is a long-time critic of U.S. support for al-Qaeda-linked factions in Syria, so the new HTS offensive sets the stage for an explosive confirmation hearing, which may backfire on Syria hawks in Washington if Gabbard is allowed to make her case.

Elsewhere in the region, Israel’s  genocide in Gaza and war on its neighbors have led to widespread anti-Israel and anti-U.S. resistance. 

Where the United States was once able to buy off Arab rulers with weapons deals and military alliances, the Arab and Muslim world is coalescing around a position that sees Israel’s behavior as unacceptable and Iran as a threatened neighbor rather than an enemy. Unconditional U.S. support for Israel risks permanently downgrading U.S. relations with former allies, from Iraq, Jordan and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah (or Houthi) government has maintained a blockade of the Red Sea, using missiles and drones against Israeli-linked ships heading for the Israeli port of Eilat or the Suez Canal. The Yemenis have defeated a U.S.-led naval task force sent to break the blockade and have reduced shipping through the Suez Canal by at least two-thirds, forcing shipping companies to reroute most ships all the way around Africa. The port of Eilat filed for bankruptcy in July, after only one ship docked there in several months.

Other resistance forces have conducted attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and U.S. forces have retaliated in a low-grade tit-for-tat war. The Iraqi government has strongly condemned U.S. and Israeli attacks in Iraq as violations of its sovereignty. Attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have flared up again in recent months, while Iraqi resistance forces have also launched drone attacks on Israel.

An emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on November 26th voted unanimously to support Iraq and condemn Israeli threats. U.S.-Iraqi talks in September drew up a plan for hundreds of U.S. troops to leave Iraq in 2025 and for all 2,500 to be gone within two years. The U.S. has outmaneuvered previous withdrawal plans, but the days of these very unwelcome U.S. bases must surely be numbered.

Recent meetings of Arab and Muslim states have forged a growing sense of unity around a rejection of U.S. proposals for normalization of relations with Israel and a new solidarity with Palestine and Iran. At a meeting of Islamic nations in Riyadh on November 11th, Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin-Salman publicly called the Israeli massacre in Gaza a genocide for the first time. 

Arab and Muslim countries know that Trump may act unpredictably and that they need a stable common position to avoid becoming pawns to Trump or Netanyahu. They recognize that previous divisions left them vulnerable to exploitation by the United States and Israel, which contributed to the current crisis in Palestine and the risk of a major regional war that now looms over them.

On November 29th, Saudi and Western officials told Reuters that Saudi Arabia has given up on a new military alliance with the U.S., which would include normalizing relations with Israel, and is opting for a more limited U.S. weapons deal. 

The Saudis had hoped for a treaty that included a U.S. commitment to defend them, like U.S. treaties with Japan and South Korea. That would require confirmation by the U.S. Senate, which would demand Saudi recognition of Israel in return. But the Saudis can no longer consider recognizing Israel without a viable plan for Palestinian statehood, which Israel rejects.

On the other hand, Saudi relations with Iran are steadily improving since they restored relations 18 months ago with diplomatic help from China and Iraq. At a meeting with new Iranian prime minister Pezeshkian in Qatar on October 3rd, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan declared, “We seek to close the page of differences between the two countries forever and work towards the resolution of our issues and expansion of our relations like two friendly and brotherly states.”

Prince Faisal highlighted the “very sensitive and critical” situation in the region due to Israel’s “aggressions” against Gaza and Lebanon and its attempts to expand the conflict. He said Saudi Arabia trusted Iran’s “wisdom and discernment” in managing the situation to restore calm and peace.

If Saudi Arabia and its neighbors can make peace with Iran, what will the consequences be for Israel’s illegal, genocidal occupation of Palestine, which has been enabled and encouraged by decades of unconditional U.S. military and diplomatic support?

On December 2, Trump wrote on Truth Social that if the hostages were not released by the time of his inauguration, there would be “ ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East.” “Those responsible,” he warned, “will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.” 

Trump and many of his acolytes exemplify the Western arrogance and lust for imperial power that lies at the root of this crisis. More threats and more destruction are not the answer. Trump has had good relations with the dictatorial rulers of the Gulf states, with whom he shares much in common. If he is willing to listen, he will realize, like they do, that there is no solution to this crisis without freedom, self-determination and sovereignty in their own land for the people of Palestine. That is the path to peace, if he will take it.

Via Code Pink

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

WION: “Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire: Israel Bombs Lebanon Amid Truce, Deadliest Strikes Since Ceasefire Began”

Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit. The US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military’s repeated, unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes.

“Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel,” said Richard Weir, senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media.”

The attack took place in the early morning at the Hasbaya Village Club Resort in Hasbaya, a town in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying for over three weeks. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack. Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building. After initially stating that its forces struck a building where “terrorists were operating,” the Israeli military said hours later that “the incident is under review.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed eight people who were staying at or near the resort, including three injured journalists and the resort’s owner. Human Rights Watch also visited the site on November 1 and verified 6 videos and 22 photos of the attack and its aftermath, plus satellite images. There has been no response to letters sent to the Israeli military on November 14 with findings and questions and to the Lebanese military on November 5 with questions.

The attack on the building in which the journalists were staying took place just after 3 a.m., based on interviews and CCTV footage with the same time code. Most of the journalists were sleeping. Zakaria Fadel, 25, an assistant cameraman for Lebanon-based ISOL for Broadcast, a Lebanese satellite and broadcast services provider, said he was brushing his teeth when the blast threw him into the air.

A munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor. The blast killed Ghassan Najjar, a journalist and cameraman, and Mohammad Reda, a satellite broadcast engineer, both from Al Mayadeen TV, and Wissam Kassem, a cameraman from the Hezbollah-owned outlet Al Manar TV. Al Mayadeen is a Lebanon-based pan-Arab television station politically allied with Hezbollah and the Syrian government.

Human Rights Watch verified videos taken minutes after the attack which show the targeted building completely destroyed and nearby buildings damaged. The strike collapsed a wall in the adjacent building, seriously injuring Hassan Hoteit, 48, a cameraman for ISOL for Broadcast, and substantially damaged the wall of a small building about 10 meters away, injuring other journalists, including Ali Mortada, 46, a camera operator for Al Jazeera.

Mortada said he woke to the blast and pieces of concrete falling on him, injuring his face and his right arm. When the debris stopped falling, he went to see if his colleagues were okay. He and others found Hoteit injured, and the building struck destroyed. Mortada said he saw the bodies of Kassem and Najjar nearby. They found Reda’s remains further away.

Soon after, the resort’s concierge approached them, saying he had found two human legs in one bedroom. Ehab el-Okdy, a reporter for Al Jazeera who was staying at the resort, said that he also saw the bodies and body parts of the dead reporters. “We saw the bodies,” he said. “We saw Mohammad Reda was shattered all over the place.”

Anoir Ghaida, the resort’s owner, said the journalists had arrived on October 1, following an evacuation order from the Israeli military for an area south of Hasbaya. The journalists had been reporting from Ibl al-Saqi, an area included in the evacuation order.

The journalists said that from October 1 until the day of the attack, they made routine and repeated trips, reporting from the Hasbaya area, frequently doing live television reports from a hilltop that overlooked large parts of southern Lebanon. The journalists and Ghaida said they would leave the resort in the morning and return in the evening, about the same time each day. Most of the vehicles at the resort were marked “Press” or “TV.”

The journalists and Ghaida said they constantly heard the buzzing of aerial drones in the area, indicating it was most likely under Israeli surveillance. Prior to October 25, there had been no attacks on Hasbaya town.

Since the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, 2023, the Israeli military has attacked and killed journalists and targeted Al Mayadeen TV. On October 23, Israeli forces attacked and destroyed an office used by Al Mayadeen in Beirut. Al Mayadeen had evacuated their staff from the building.

Israeli strikes killed at least six Lebanese journalists between October 8, 2023, and October 29, 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch found that the October 13, 2023 attack, which killed the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists, was an apparent war crime. On November 21, 2023, an Israeli strike killed two Lebanese journalists reporting for Al Mayadeen TV, Rabih al-Maamari and Farah Omar, and their driver, Hussein Akil, in Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon.

“Journalism Targeted,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

Human Rights Watch verified a photo and video from Najjar’s funeral that showed his casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a southern Beirut cemetery where Hezbollah fighters are buried, near the grave of al-Maamari. A Hezbollah spokesperson told Human Rights Watch on November 14 that Najjar had asked to be buried near his friend and colleague al-Maamari, but that Najjar “was just a civilian” and “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”

Human Rights Watch found remnants at the attack site and reviewed photographs of remnants collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing. Human Rights Watch identified one remnant as part of the guidance kit’s actuation system that moves the fins. It bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions, including the JDAM. The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Boeing and to Woodard on November 14, but did not receive responses. Companies have responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, and related guidance to stop, prevent, mitigate, or remediate actual and potential violations of international humanitarian law that they cause, contribute to, or are linked with. 

Given Israel’s record of widespread laws of war violations and lack of accountability, companies should end arms sales, recall already sold weapons wherever possible, and stop all support services for already sold weapons.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented the Israeli military’s unlawful use of US-equipped weapons in a strike in March that killed seven aid workers in southern Lebanon.

International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects. Journalists are considered civilians and are immune from attack so long as they are not directly participating in hostilities. Journalists cannot be attacked for their work as journalists, even if the opposing party considers the media biased or being used for propaganda. When carrying out any attack, warring parties must take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm and damage to civilian objects. This includes taking all necessary actions to verify that targets are military objectives.

Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.

Lebanon should urgently accept the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction to give the court’s prosecutor a mandate to investigate serious international crimes committed on the country’s territory.

Israel’s key allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany—should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses. US policy prohibits arms transfers to states “more likely than not” to use them in violations of international law.

“As evidence mounts of Israel’s unlawful use of US weapons, including in apparent war crimes, US officials need to decide whether they will uphold US and international law by halting arms sales to Israel or risk being found legally complicit in serious violations,” Weir said.

Actually, of course, in most wars both sides lose, and certainly the people of both sides do.

That is the outcome of the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2023-2024, in which US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a ceasefire for 4 am today, Wednesday, November 27, Beirut time. The ceasefire was possible because both sides had lost.

Lebanon is a small country with perhaps 5 million citizens. They fall into about 30% Christian, 30% Sunni Muslim, and 30% Shiite Muslim, with some other small groups such as the Druze making up the rest. So that is about 1.5 million Shiites, mainly in East Beirut, Baalbak, and southern Lebanon. About half of them belong to the Amal party, and the other half are affiliated with the Hezbollah party-militia, or about 750,000 people. Jane’s said a few years ago that Hezbollah has about 20,000 full-time fighters in its paramilitary and 20,000 reservists. The organization claims over twice that, but Jane’s estimates are probably about right. The point is that Hezbollah is a small part of Lebanon and its fighters are a small force.

In contrast, before the current wars Israel had 169,000 active duty personnel and some 465,000 reservists. That is, the Israeli military is almost as big all by itself as the total Shiite population of Lebanon that supports Hezbollah.

Hezbollah had over the years since its last war with Israel in 2006 amassed a big stockpile of rockets and drones. These had some value as deterrents to Israeli aggression, as with the Israeli invasion of 1982 and its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. The Israelis made a relatively poor showing against Hezbollah in 2006, and few in Tel Aviv had an appetite for further adventurism on that front. The rockets were only useful for defense, however.

Hamas did not forewarn allies Iran and Hezbollah about its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. As a result, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s clerical leader, told Hamas that he did not intend to get involved, according to Reuters. Likewise, he pressured Hezbollah to avoid sparking an Israeli attack on Lebanon, according to the Israeli press.

Despite Iran’s caution, however, Hezbollah leader, the late Hassan Nasrallah, tried to use its rockets for offensive purposes after Israel’s total war on Gaza began in October, 2023. It forced 60,000 Israelis to leave the north near the Lebanese border, launching rocket attacks in sympathy with peoples’ resistance in Gaza.

In September, Israel launched an all-out campaign on Hezbollah. Israeli intelligence had infiltrated Hezbollah and was able to set off thousands of booby-trapped pagers, wreaking havoc on its cadres. Tel Aviv used air strikes to kill many high-level leaders, including Nasrallah. That means some high-level Hezbollah leaders were spying for Israel and providing Mossad with real-time intelligence on their whereabouts.

Israel’s war on Hezbollah depended heavily on airstrikes, but the Israeli army did also launch ground operations in the south. These operations, however, were costly in men, with at least 62 Israeli troops killed in October alone. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand, were wounded. Although these seem like small numbers to Americans, Israel is a small, tightly knit country, and the loss of dozens of troops a month affects the public deeply. If you figure most people have a close circle of friends and family of about 200 people, a thousand dead or injured Israel troops would be heartbreaking to 200,000 people, nearly 3 percent of the Israeli population. Although the Israeli army has been able occasionally to advance miles into Lebanon, it hasn’t been able to take some key hills that it could have used to dominate highways going north.

This past Sunday, Hezbollah launched 49 operations against Israeli troops inside Lebanon. It also launched 255 rockets and drones at Israel proper, mostly hitting northern military and civilian targets but reaching as far as Tel Aviv.

The long, brutal campaign in Gaza, where Israeli troops still come under concerted fire, has produced low morale in the army, exacerbated by the reckless disregard for civilian life, giving many reservists a guilty conscience (which their cheeky TikTok videos boasting of their brutality are sometimes an attempt to hide). Something like a quarter of troops appear not to show up when called, i.e., they are AWOL. The response rate of the Ultra-Orthodox to being drafted is pitiful. In October, only 49 out of 900 called up for military service reported for duty.

In other words, yes, the Israeli air force can bomb apartment buildings, schools and hospitals and kill nearly 4,000 people, mostly civilians. It can displace 800,000 Lebanese — a sixth of the population. That kind of terror from the air, however, doesn’t actually translate into clear victories against Hezbollah. As a locally-based republic of cousins in Shiite areas, Hezbollah can “honeycomb” its defenses and the loss of top leadership has not paralyzed it.

So certainly Hezbollah has suffered significant setbacks. It hasn’t come close to being destroyed. The ceasefire, which pushes its land forces beyond the Litani River, merely gives its cadres an opportunity to regroup. Since it springs from the civilian Shiite population, the equivalent of Hezbollah reservists will certainly remain in the deep south, even if the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL take over the main patrolling responsibilities. Hezbollah’s rockets can still hit Israel even if it isn’t on the border. Their usefulness for defensive deterrence remains significant.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu dreamed of reshaping the Lebanese government as a prelude to reshaping the Middle East. In that he failed miserably. Hezbollah dreamed of forcing an end to the genocidal Israeli total war on Gaza while retaining deterrence against Tel Aviv in south Lebanon. In that it failed miserably, and its leadership paid the ultimate price for their hubris.

The ceasefire is the truce of the weak on both sides.

—–

Bonus Video:

Al Jazeera English: “President Biden hails Lebanon ceasefire as ‘good news’”

As of October 25, Israeli attacks have killed at least 163 health and rescue workers across Lebanon over the past year and damaged 158 ambulances and 55 hospitals, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. The Israeli military should immediately halt unlawful attacks on medical workers and healthcare facilities, and Israel’s allies should suspend the transfer of arms to Israel given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses.

“The Israeli military’s unlawful attacks on medical workers and hospitals are devastating Lebanon’s already frail health care system and putting medical workers at grave risk,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Strikes on medical workers and healthcare facilities also compound risks to injured civilians, severely hindering their ability to receive urgently needed medical attention.”

The United Nations should urgently establish, and UN member countries should support, an international investigation into the recent hostilities in Lebanon and northern Israel, and ensure that it is dispatched immediately to gather information and make findings as to violations of international law and recommendations for accountability.

Human Rights Watch interviewed eight people, including paramedics, civil defense, and hospital officials, and visited the site of the attack on the Islamic Health Committee’s civil defense center, where it additionally interviewed three residents and witnesses to the attack. Human Rights Watch also analyzed photographs, videos, and satellite imagery of the attacks. Human Rights Watch sent a letter outlining its findings and posing questions to the Israeli military on October 7 but has not received a response. On October 21, Human Rights Watch sent a letter outlining its research findings and posing questions to the Islamic Health Committee, which responded on October 23.

An overnight Israeli strike on October 3 struck a civil defense center in the Bashoura neighborhood of central Beirut, killing seven paramedics. The center belonged to the Islamic Health Committee, a civil defense and ambulance organization affiliated with Hezbollah. In Lebanon, the civil defense is a civilian force whose duties include providing emergency medical and rescue services and assisting with the evacuation of the civilian population. On October 4, the Israeli military struck an Islamic Health Committee ambulance near the entrance of Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon, killing seven other paramedics and forcing the hospital to evacuate its staff and shut down. That same day, the Israeli military struck Salah Ghandour Hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, around two and a half hours after issuing an evacuation warning by phone to local officials.

The Israeli government has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport fighters and hospitals to hide weapons and equipment. Human Rights Watch did not find any evidence indicating use of these three facilities for military purposes at the time of the attacks that would justify depriving them of their protected status under international humanitarian law.

In the absence of military justification for the attacks on the facilities, the attacks are unlawful. Such attacks directed against medical facilities, if carried out with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—would be war crimes.

Membership or affiliation with Hezbollah, or other political movements with armed wings, is not a sufficient basis for determining an individual to be a lawful military target. Guidance by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sets out that people who have exclusively non-combat functions in armed groups, including political or administrative roles, or are merely members of or affiliated with political entities that have an armed component, such as Hezbollah, may not be targeted at any time unless and only for such time as they, like any other civilian, directly participate in the hostilities. Medical personnel affiliated with Hezbollah, including those assigned to civil defense organizations, are protected under the laws of war.

On October 21, a strike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital reportedly killed 18 people, including 4 children, and damaged the hospital.

Under the laws of war, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other health and medical personnel must be permitted to do their work and be protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection only if they commit, outside their humanitarian function, “acts harmful to the enemy.”

Likewise, ambulances and other medical transportation must be allowed to function and be protected in all circumstances. They could lose their protection only if they are being used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy,” such as transporting ammunition or healthy fighters in service. The attacking force must issue a warning to cease this misuse and can only attack after such a warning goes unheeded.

Under international humanitarian law, all parties to the conflict are under a duty, at all times, to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to target only combatants. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime. All governments that are parties to an armed conflict are obligated to investigate alleged war crimes by members of their armed forces.

In November 2023, Human Rights Watch called for investigations into the Israeli military’s repeated, apparently indiscriminate attacks on medical facilities in Gaza. Human Rights Watch has called on Israel’s key allies to suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses.

“With more than a hundred health workers killed, Israeli strikes in Lebanon are putting civilians, including medical workers, at grave risk of harm,” Kaiss said. “Medical workers should be protected, and countries should take action to prevent further atrocities, including by suspending arms sales and military assistance to Israel.”

As of October 28, 2024, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,710 people and injured more than 12,592 people since October 2023, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

As of October 25, the Ministry of Public Health said Israeli strikes in Lebanon had damaged 51 emergency medical centers and facilities tied to various governmental and nongovernmental health organizations, including the Lebanese Red Cross, the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense, the Amel Association International, the Islamic Risala Scout Association, the Islamic Health Committee, and the Lebanese Succour Association. The ministry stated that the attacks had damaged a total of 158 ambulances belonging to these groups and that 55 hospitals were damaged in strikes that killed 12 people and injured 60, as of October 25. On October 25, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon said that, since October 2023, “27 attacks targeted ambulances used by first responders.”

On October 3, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director general said that 28 on-duty medics were killed in Lebanon in the span of 24 hours. The WHO warned on October 8 about disease outbreaks in Lebanon following the partial or full closure of at least nine hospitals in addition to crowded conditions in shelters for displaced persons. On October 8, an official with the Islamic Health Committee told Human Rights Watch that Israeli strikes had killed 60 of the committee’s paramedics since the escalation of hostilities in mid-September. 

Human Rights Watch did not independently verify the circumstances of each of these cases.

Since October 2023, Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets and missiles into towns in northern Israel, killing at least 16 civilians. In July, 12 children were killed in an attack on the town of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Golan Heights. Israeli and United States officials said that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack, which the group denies.

The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed that Hezbollah is using civilian infrastructure for military purposes. In a speech before the UN General Assembly on September 27, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of hiding rockets and missiles in hospitals. In March, Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, accused Hezbollah and the Lebanese Amal Movement of using ambulances “for terrorist purposes,” including to transport personnel and combat equipment. In October, the spokesperson reiterated these claims in a post to his X account, warned medical crews to stay away from Hezbollah members, and called on them not to cooperate with the group. He did not distinguish between Hezbollah combatants and other civilian members of the group’s institutions or political office. He said that “any vehicle proven to have an armed saboteur using it for terrorist purposes, regardless of its type, will have appropriate measures taken against it to prevent its military use.”

The claims made by the Israeli military spokesperson are contested. Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them.

Methodology

Human Rights Watch spoke to members of the Islamic Health Committee; the Islamic Risala Scout Association, a civil defense and ambulance organization affiliated with the Amal Movement, a Lebanese political party and Hezbollah ally; and officials at Mays al-Jabal Hospital, Marjayoun Hospital, and Salah Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch also spoke with three officials from the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense and reviewed statements provided by the Islamic Health Committee and the Islamic Risala Scout Association pertaining to attacks on their centers and crews.

On October 3, Human Rights Watch visited the site of the attack on the Islamic Health Committee’s civil defense center and interviewed residents and witnesses to the attack. On October 7, Human Rights Watch interviewed an individual who operated an art studio in the same building as the civil defense center in Beirut.

One paramedic with the Lebanese Civil Defense, whom Human Rights Watch interviewed, was subsequently killed in an Israeli strike on a civil defense center in the southern Lebanese town of Dardghaya on October 9.

Human Rights Watch analyzed 57 photographs and videos posted on social media platforms or shared directly with researchers. The images were taken in Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa governorate. Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery from Salah Ghandour Hospital and Marjayoun Hospital recorded before and after the attacks. Human Rights Watch visited the site of the strike on the civil defense center in Beirut but did not visit the sites of the strikes at the hospitals in southern Lebanon.

Strike on the Islamic Health Committee Civil Defense Center

Shortly after midnight, on October 3, an Israeli strike hit the Islamic Health Committee’s civil defense center in central Beirut, on the second floor of a residential building. A statement published that day by the committee said that the strike killed seven paramedics. Those victims, according to the committee, included two volunteer paramedics, the head of the committee’s civil defense in Beirut, the head of operations in Beirut, the head of equipment in the Beirut area, the head of machinery and maintenance, and the head of rescue work.

The Ministry of Public Health said that the attack killed nine people and that DNA tests on recovered body parts are ongoing to verify the identity of the remaining unidentified victims. Two witnesses said that among the victims were bystanders who were near the building at the time of the strike.

On the October 3 visit to the site, Human Rights Watch observed damage indicating that at least two munitions detonated in rooms containing the Islamic Health Committee’s offices and blast damage on the floors above and below. Researchers also observed primary and secondary fragmentation damage on adjoining and adjacent apartment buildings, businesses, and al-Bashoura Islamic Cemetery, across the street.

The Islamic Health Committee’s civil defense director general said in a statement provided to Human Rights Watch that the center has 13 employees and 45 volunteers, who provided rescue and first aid services to residents and displaced people from the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

One neighborhood resident, who was at his shop at the time of the attack, said he immediately rushed to the building after the strike to help those injured. He said he saw three lifeless bodies, including one that was severely mutilated. “Everybody knows it’s a medical center,” he said. “They help everyone here.”

Mahmoud Karaki, an Islamic Health Committee spokesperson, said that the paramedics at the center at the time of the strike had gone there to rest after a day of rescue work in Beirut’s southern suburbs, after a series of Israeli strikes overnight.

“All of the people who were in the office were paramedics,” Karaki said. “Some were managers, but all are paramedics.” He said the center was established in the Bashoura neighborhood since 2009.

Human Rights Watch reviewed two images circulating on social media that showed one paramedic killed in the strike, Wissam Mahmoud Salhab, in military clothes on martyr posters that are highly similar to those issued by Hezbollah’s military wing, in addition to a video of Salhab firing an assault rifle. Another photo reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed another paramedic killed in the strike, Sajid Shirri, in military clothes donning a Hezbollah patch.

“Hospital,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / PS Express / Crop2Comic, 2024.

Human Rights Watch noticed discrepancies in the martyr posters, including the use of two separate photos, ranks and pseudonyms for the same person. The same camouflage and scarf used in Sahlab’s posters were found on other apparent martyrs’ posters circulating online. In its response to a letter from Human Rights Watch, the Islamic Health Committee denied that the martyr posters for Salhab were issued by Hezbollah’s military wing, and said instead that “such posters, often are designed by family members and friends of those killed who consider photos in military clothes post-martyrdom to be a source of pride.”

Human Rights Watch could not verify the source of the martyr posters. The statement said that Hezbollah’s military wing did not issue those posters on its Telegram channel, which Human Rights Watch confirmed, and said that Salhab had worked for more than 10 years as the head of emergency operations and logistics at the civil defense center in Beirut. The Islamic Health Committee also said that Shirri was “never a member of Hezbollah’s military wing and has never held a role in that regard … and his work was limited to health, rescue and emergency services.” It said that the military clothes worn by Shirri in the circulated photos could have belonged to his relatives or have been bought from a store, and that such military clothes do not necessarily belong to Hezbollah. Human Rights Watch could not verify this claim.

The Islamic Health Committee further said that none of the paramedics killed in the Bashoura strike and the strike on a group of paramedics near Marjayoun Hospital had held a combat function or mission in the military wing of Hezbollah since joining the committee. It denied that the committee has any ties to military operations and stated that there is a “complete separation between the military wing [of Hezbollah] and the social services wing.”

Maria Hibri, an artist who owns a workshop on the ground floor of the same building said that the building was made up of three blocks, with 27 families living in each block, and that the targeted floor was solely occupied by the civil defense center. “There was no evacuation warning given to anyone in the building,” she said. “Why? They would have left. Nobody wanted to die.”

Strikes on Ambulance Near Marjayoun Hospital

In an October 4 statement, the Islamic Health Committee said that seven of the group’s paramedics had been killed “in a direct attack on the ambulance crew at Marjayoun Hospital.”

Shoshan Hassan Mazraani, the emergency room head nurse at the hospital, said she witnessed the strike while she was drinking coffee outside the entrance of the hospital’s emergency room. She said that the strike was “directly on the ambulances,” three of which were on the road leading to the hospital’s entrance at the time of the attack.

“I ran to the ambulances and told people that they hit the paramedics,” she said. “Once I got to the road I couldn’t continue. Staff at the hospital were saying don’t go near the ambulances, they might strike again. And the injured paramedics were calling out for me to help them.”

Mazraani, who is usually responsible for providing death tolls from the hospital to the Ministry of Public Health, said that seven paramedics were killed and five were injured.

“These guys, we knew them,” she said. “For a year they were bringing injured people to the hospital. We became familiar with them. They are paramedics, just like any other ambulance crew.”

In statements to the media on October 4, the Marjayoun Hospital director, Dr. Moanes Kalakish, said that the hospital’s main entrance “was targeted as paramedics were approaching” and that the hospital was not warned before the attack. Mazraani also said that neither she nor other hospital staff received evacuation warnings.

The hospital was evacuated and shut down after the strike that day, news reports and Mazraani said. One photograph taken on October 4 and geolocated by Human Rights Watch to approximately 150 meters from the hospital shows a burned ambulance and a truck on fire under a burned palm tree. Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery from October 11 of the area around Marjayoun Hospital showing the burned vehicles.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed one video and two photographs uploaded to X on October 11, showing a large crater blocking one of the main roads into Marjayoun Hospital.

Israeli strikes on roads leading to the hospital hindered hospital staff from returning to their homes, Mazraani said. For 12 days before the hospital shut down, hospital workers had been sleeping there, according to Mazraani.

“There was a lot of danger, and we knew that if we left, we won’t be able to go back to the hospital,” she said.

The Israeli military did not publicly provide any evidence that Marjayoun Hospital or the ambulances targeted near the entrance were being used to carry out hostile acts.

Strike on Salah Ghandour Hospital

The head of Salah Ghandour Hospital in Bint Jbeil, Dr. Mohammed Suleiman, said that the hospital was struck on October 4, two-and-a-half hours after they received an evacuation warning. Suleiman said that a local official in Bint Jbeil received a call, reportedly from an Israeli military official, at around 6 p.m. on October 4 informing him that the paramedics around the hospital should be evacuated within four hours as the hospital could be struck.

“We deemed that this warning did not concern the medical staff of the hospital, so we evacuated the paramedics and the area around the hospitals, but the staff stayed,” Suleiman said. “But we were surprised that 2.5 hours later … a strike took place at 8:30 pm before the end of the [four hour] warning period. The hospital was struck three times. One shell struck the on-call room and two shells struck the paramedics’ waiting room, [both] inside the hospital.”

Nine hospital workers were injured, including doctors and medical workers, three of whom are in critical condition, Suleiman said.

Lebanese media reported that after the attack, the Israeli military did not respond to requests from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, to allow a Lebanese Red Cross and Lebanese Army convoy to approach the hospital and help evacuate people. Suleiman said that the hospital staff were forced to evacuate injured people in their own cars.

On October 5, the Israeli military said that an Israeli Air Force aircraft attacked “Hezbollah terrorists who were operating within a command center that was located inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital.” The military said that Hezbollah used the command center “to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” referring to the Israeli military; and that “notices were sent to residents and conversations were held with significant parties” in villages with hospitals being used “in defiance of the laws of armed conflict.” The military said that it demanded that “any military activity carried out from the hospitals should stop immediately,” but did not give further details of what ‘terrorist activity’ took place from the Salah Ghandour Hospital.

Suleiman said that the military first struck the hospital from the side that is furthest away from the mosque, before striking the mosque afterwards. In the warning to the village, Suleiman said, no mention was made of the mosque or of its use by Hezbollah.

The Israeli military did not provide public evidence that either the hospital or the mosque were being used to commit hostile acts.

Human Rights Watch geolocated a photograph and a video posted to social media the day after the attack and received from a contact, showing the destroyed mosque adjacent to the hospital.

Low-resolution satellite imagery recorded on the morning of October 4 shows no signs of damage in Salah Ghandour Hospital, but an image collected 24 hours later, in the morning of October 5, confirms the site was struck.

A very high-resolution satellite image from October 11, analyzed by Human Rights Watch, shows the mosque completely destroyed, and heavy damage to the hospital’s northwestern side, facing the mosque, and smaller damage to the hospital rooftop on the opposite northeastern side.

Healthcare facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under the laws of war against attacks and other acts of violence, including bombing, shelling, looting, forced entry, shooting into, encircling, or other forceful interference such as intentionally depriving facilities of electricity and water. Healthcare facilities only lose their protection from attack if they are being used to commit “acts harmful to the enemy,” and after a required warning.

According to the ICRC, “prior to an attack against a medical unit which is being used to commit acts harmful to the enemy, a warning has to be issued setting, whenever appropriate, a reasonable time limit and that an attack can only take place after such warning has remained unheeded.”

Other Strikes on Health Centers, Medical Workers 

Human Rights Watch identified at least two other attacks, in the southern Lebanese towns of Sohmor and Kafra, that significantly damaged healthcare centers and vehicles and killed medical personnel.

On September 29, six members of the Islamic Health Committee were killed in Sohmor, in the Bekaa governorate, the Ministry of Public Health said. Videos taken from the site of the strike, posted on social media on September 30 and analyzed by Human Rights Watch, show a damaged civil defense car and two damaged ambulances with the logos of the committee, as well as a burning vehicle. Human Rights Watch geolocated the site of the strike to a building in the northeastern part of Sohmor but could not determine whether there were military targets present at the site.

The civil defense commissioner for the Islamic Risala Scout Association, Rabih Issa, said that a separate strike on September 30 hit a group of paramedics when they were changing shifts at one of the group’s assembly points in Kafra, in the Nabatieh governorate, damaging three ambulances belonging to the association and injuring several paramedics. Human Rights Watch analyzed two videos received from a contact and posted on social media on September 30 and geolocated them to the main road in Kafra. The videos show one destroyed ambulance in addition to two burned vehicles on a damaged road.

Evacuation Warnings to Medical and Civil Defense Centers

On September 30, Issa told Human Rights Watch that two other civil defense centers belonging to the Islamic Risala Scout Association in southern Lebanon received a phone call from the Israeli military the previous week ordering them to evacuate the centers within two hours. It is unclear whether the two centers were subsequently hit.

The head of the Lebanese Civil Defense Force in Tyre, Abdullah Moussawi, also told Human Rights Watch on September 30 that two civil defense centers in southern Lebanon received a phone call from the Israeli military ordering staff to evacuate their centers. He said that the centers were not attacked despite the evacuation warnings.

Moussawi and four other paramedics were killed in a strike “that targeted the civil defense center” in Dardghaya, near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, on October 9, according to the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense.

The director of medical supplies at the Mays al-Jabal Hospital, Dr. Halim Saad, said that the hospital also received an evacuation warning on October 4 from the Israeli military, instructing the staff to leave immediately. Saad said that the attacks in the surrounding area since October 2023 had damaged the hospital. The hospital shut its doors on October 4 and evacuated its staff after the Israeli military reportedly ordered its evacuation.

It remained unclear whether Mays al-Jabal Hospital was directly attacked after the Israeli military’s evacuation warning.

Human Rights Watch analyzed and geolocated seven photographs and one video provided by Saad that showed damage consistent with kinetic damage to the hospital’s facade, entrance doors, and windows facing south, as well as a remnant of an artillery-fired smoke projectile in the hospital’s yard. Saad said that the hospital depended on UNIFIL to deliver needed supplies, such as water, fuel, and medical supplies, but had been unable to receive supplies in the week before it closed.

“The strikes that have happened on and near the hospital since last year, in addition to the evacuation warnings we received and the inability to get medical supplies, water, and fuel to the hospital forced us to close our doors,” Saad said.

Customary international law prohibits “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.” Statements that call for evacuating areas that are primarily intended to cause panic among residents would fall under this prohibition. Civilians, including medical workers, who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international humanitarian law.

Via Human Rights Watch

Undeniably, a core element of Middle East tension has often been the rift between the two main sects of Islam: the Sunnis and the Shiites. While they represent the two biggest branches of the Muslim religion, they are fundamentally different and adhere to contrasting ideologies. However, the line between the two sects hasn’t always been clear cut.

Hezbollah’s began as a resistance movement in 1984 against an Israeli invasion that targeted a weakened Lebanon during the 1975-1989 Civil War. In its founding manifesto, Hezbollah declared itself as a resistance movement aimed at freeing Lebanon from any foreign powers, rallied for the destruction of Israel, and pled allegiance to Iran and its supreme leader. Throughout the years, Hezbollah developed both as a party and a militia. In its former role it became a part of the Lebanese Parliament. But it has been accused of operating “as a government in the areas under its control” (CFR).

Hezbollah gained substantial support from Lebanese Shiites and non-Shiites by providing a vast number of social services to the residents such as infrastructure, healthcare facilities, schools, and youth programs. Outside of Lebanon, Hezbollah had support from many Sunnis in the Arabic world mainly owing to its support for the Palestinians and its hard stance on fighting Israel. However, as the years went on this support began to diminish, especially after Hezbollah intervened in the Syrian civil war to help the al-Assad government crush Sunni rebel groups.

During the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, Syria was engulfed by demonstrations and protests against the ruling regime of Bashar Al Assad. The unrest in Syria quickly devolved into a full-on civil war, with the government fighting against largely Sunni rebel groups. During this war, Hezbollah sided with al-Assad’s government alongside Russia and Iran. It sent in some 7000 militants in 2013 to support the Syrian Arab Army. While this decision further cemented Hezbollah’s alliance with Iran and demonstrated its military prowess, it diminished its popularity on two fronts; One, it ended most of the Sunnis’ support as many Muslim Sunnis around the world saw the al-Assad regime as an authoritarian regime that needed to be overthrown. Second, according to many Lebanese, Hezbollah’s focus on the war made it fall short in terms of its domestic duties and opened it up for Israeli strikes and penetration. Hence, the assistance Hezbollah provided in Syria caused the groups’ esteem in the Sunni Arab world to undergo a sharp decline, since people saw Hezbollah as a pawn of Iran.

“Taqrib,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Crop2Comic, 2024.

According to a survey done by Pew Research on extremist groups such as Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah, the latter seen a significant decline in popularity in all Middle Eastern countries other than Lebanon. The substantial reduction in popularity can be observed by comparing the percentages in some of these countries. For example, in 2007, 41% of Egyptians had a negative view of Hezbollah, but that skyrocketed to 81% by 2014. The same phenomenon is visible in Jordan where in 2007, only 44% of people had a negative perception of the movement. However, by 2014, it had risen to 81%. Only in Lebanon did Hezbollah perform more consistently and more positively. In Lebanon however, the positive feedback is carried single-handedly by Shiite Muslims. 88% of Sunni Muslims and 69% of Lebanese Christians held negative sentiments towards the group, while 86% of Shiite Muslims supported the group, which sprang from them.

If anything, this survey reflects the rift that’s been widening between the two Muslim factions and the loss in popularity of armed resistance in the Middle East. Not only that, but this rift became one of the main reasons that Hamas, the military resistance organization in Gaza, to temporarily abandon its alliance with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, the Axis of Resistance in 2012 when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt and seemed a better fit for Hamas, which derived from it.

Yet, the recent war on Gaza and subsequently the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in the South of Lebanon had begun, to an extent, to heal the relations between Hezbollah and many Sunni Muslims.  Over the past year, Israel has intensified its assault on the Gaza Strip and has even begun to launch attacks on Lebanon, successfully killing the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Many Sunni groups within Lebanon feared the Israel threat and despite their caution toward and mistrust of  Hezbollah, some of them started to move closer to the Shiite-led paramilitary group.

For instance, against the atrocities happening in Gaza and for the defence of their country, the Lebanese Sunni group al-Jamaa al-Islamiya decided to join hands with Hezbollah in their fight along the Lebanese borders. The Sunni faction sent its Al-Fajr forces to support Hezbollah, and which symbolized the unified front in Lebanon. This stance is strengthened by Sheikh Mohammad Takkoush, the Secretary-General of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, who explained that whatever the differences and disagreements they had with Hezbollah were unimportant when the country was under external threat.

This alliance between the Sunni group and Hezbollah has some benefits s for both parties. Hezbollah can earn legitimacy for its presence in Sunni villages while al-Jamaa al-Islamiya can bolster its political standing and popularity by gaining an ally in Hezbollah.

Despite the new rise in popularity, the appreciation for Hezbollah’s involvement in the Gaza War is far from unanimous. Many leaders from the Sunni and Christian communities in Lebanon warned that involvement in this war could destabilize the country and urged Hezbollah to show restraint and avoid a full-scale war with Israel. However, the recent Israeli airstrikes on Beirut and the killing of Hassan Nasrallah have raised the possibility of a large-scale war. As in 2006, despite the disagreements between the big factions of Lebanon, if a full scale war were to break out between Israel and Lebanon, these factions would rally around Hezbollah and form a unified front to expel the Israelis.