Justice for Lebanon: Against the ‘new phase in the war’

These latest barbaric events develop the broader project of Zionist terror in Lebanon, writes rs21 member TK Adisa.

On Tuesday 17th September Israel committed another barbaric attack, with hundreds, if not thousands, of pagers exploding across Lebanon and Syria, injuring at least 4000 and hundreds critically so, and killing at least 10, including a 9 year-old child, Fatima Jaafar Abdullah. 

The following day, a second round of attacks involving walkie-talkies and other devices has seen the death toll rise to 37 with hundreds more injured, including at Fatima’s funeral. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said ‘we are at a new phase in the war’.

It is unclear how the genocidal Israeli state carried out these attacks, but early reports suggest they were able to intercept pagers ordered by Hezbollah, and install them with a small amount of explosives. Zionists and their imperialist supporters have been gleefully celebrating the attack, with many liberals praising its “innovative” and “targeted” nature. Of course, few voices from Israel, the US or Britain have acknowledged that triggering thousands of indiscriminate explosions across multiple countries is a blatant act of international terrorism and a war crime. 

It is crucial to note that Hezbollah is a political party and part of the ruling government in Lebanon, and as such, employs many civilians, some of whom used these pagers. The devices were also used by a large number of people who had no relation to Hezbollah at all, with many unsuspecting civilians purchasing these rigged pagers second-hand in recent months. Imagine that Hezbollah blew up the rigged mobile devices of off-duty Israeli reservists, civil servants, healthcare workers and members of Zionist political parties. Those cheerleading this savage attack would be immediate in their condemnation and call for an uncompromising response. 

Just as in Gaza, the category of terrorist is being used to justify any and all violence against those whom the colonial state seeks to kill, maim and terrorise. In Gaza, all Palestinians are included within this category as the settler-colonial Israeli state seeks to ethnically cleanse them from their land. In Lebanon, at least for now, this category includes anyone with any relationship or mere proximity to Hezbollah, as Israel seeks to destroy the capacity of the people of Lebanon to resist Zionist colonialism and genocide by instilling terror and fear into them.  

In this sense, this attack must be seen as part of a broader project of Zionist terror in Lebanon alongside: the bombings of Dahiya that killed Saleh Al-Arouri along with civilians and children, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, forests, use of white phosphorus and daily flights of drones over South Lebanon and sonic booms over Beirut, the assassination of journalists and the use of propaganda, on social media and otherwise, seeking to strike fear into the masses.  We must remember that it was in Lebanon that Israel pioneered its Dahiya doctrine, a military strategy evidently central to the genocide in Gaza, aimed at use of disproportionate force and destroying civilian structure in order to pressure military opponents.

The pager attack also comes just days after the 42nd anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, committed by Zionist-aligned Phalangist fascist militias against Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shia during the 1982 war in Lebanon. Zionist terrorism has a long history, stretching back to the Irgun and Haganah militias prior to and during the Nakba. But just like the imperial violence of the US, Britain, France and others, it is legitimised through the capitalist, colonial and imperialist logics that permeate (international) law, politics and culture. Alongside the expansion of the war by Israel, the US has been concentrating a huge proportion of naval forces – including aircraft carriers – in the Mediterranean and Red Sea in recent months. Figures in the Biden administration and the defense and security establishment have stressed that any participation in such an escalated conflict would consist of purely “defensive” actions on behalf of Israel. 

But the US and Britain’s actions during Operation Prosperity Guardian – their attempt to lift the Yemeni siege on Israel – shows that “defensive” acts by imperial powers in this context simply means a defence of genocide via vicious attacks on some of the poorest people in the world. Just last week, a British airstrike killed a 2-year old girl in Yemen. Dozens have been killed in the last few months, and civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. The Yemeni people have committed the “offence” of resisting the Zionist genocide and imposing costs on the US and Britain for supporting it. 

Talk of the “potential” of regional war is becoming increasingly redundant. Netanyahu has been clear that Israel is already fighting a war on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Notwithstanding the genocide and killing of hundreds and injury of thousands in Lebanon, it has carried out assassinations in Iran and Syria, destroyed a major port in Yemen and bombed Iraq repeatedly. 

Sharp divisions exist within the Israeli government and society with regards to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal. Gallant and the military and intelligence establishment are keen to reach a deal for political reasons – internal tensions over the deprioritisation of the hostages, lack of plan for the “day after” and international condemnation of the genocide – and military reasons, namely the steadfastness of the resistance and the heavy costs they have imposed on invading forces. But Netanyahu wishes to keep fighting in Gaza for his own self-preservation. The far-right settler movement from which he draws much of his support and which also composes much of the Israeli miltary rank and file  ideologically prioritises the genocide over realpolitik. Thus, the Israeli leadership’s drive towards all-out regional war is not only a project of external destruction, but also internal unification, smoothing over some of these divisions in favour of Netanyahu’s new war aim of returning the displaced settler population to the North of historic Palestine and occupied Southern Lebanon.

Many states, including Britain and Germany (which has quietly but significantly reduced arms sales to Israel in recent months), are beginning to waver in their patience for the ongoing genocide.

It is now more important than ever to push the Starmer government to go beyond limited restrictions on arms shipments and the dropping of its objection to the ICC arrest warrants. The British state is still conducting an aggressive military campaign against Yemen, following its humanitarian blockade in support of the Palestinian people, and its bases and spy planes are still being used to support the Zionist genocide. We fight for an end to this, a full arms and energy embargo, comprehensive sanctions on Israel, and a derecognition of a state that is hellbent on genocide not only in Gaza, but the destruction of the region and its peoples at large. In our workplaces and in our streets, we must continue to escalate our action to this end.