A New Wave of Israeli Attacks on Lebanon

The Israeli government is choosing a larger war, and the Biden administration has done nothing to stop them.

Israel launched a new wave of airstrikes on Lebanon today. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the strikes have killed at least 182 people and wounded more than 700 others. This appears to be the first stage in a major assault on Lebanon. The Israeli government is choosing a larger war, and the Biden administration has done nothing to stop them.

The latest attacks followed a toothless warning from Washington against further escalation. The NSC spokesman John Kirby said that “ we don’t believe that escalating this military conflict is in their best interest,” but this sort of appeal is useless when dealing with a government that has been eager to escalate for months. The president said that the administration was “going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out,” but we already know that they won’t do the one thing—cutting off arms transfers—that might make the Israeli government think twice about this.

The U.S. continues to arm Israeli forces and deploys its own military assets to help shield Israel from the consequences of their own actions. That has given Netanyahu the means and the opportunity to set more of the region ablaze, and that is what he is doing. If the Biden administration genuinely wanted to stop what is happening, they could likely do it in short order, but they would rather indulge the fantasy that Israel can somehow bomb Hezbollah into quiescence without triggering a larger conflict.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “the actions will continue until we achieve our goal to return the northern residents safely to their homes,” but that is exactly what escalation in Lebanon will not achieve. Heavier bombing of Lebanon will lead to intensified reprisals from Hezbollah. Northern Israel will not be more secure as a result, and the entire country will come under missile attack.

The Biden administration has spent almost a year pretending that its influence over a dependent client is so “limited” that there is nothing it can do to stop it from behaving recklessly. The reality is that the Israeli government could not have waged the war in Gaza as it has without massive U.S. support, and it would be hard-pressed to open up a second front if the U.S. weren’t backing them to the hilt. The administration claimed that it wanted to contain the conflict and prevent the outbreak of a regional war, but by enabling Israel’s devastation of Gaza Biden practically guaranteed this outcome.

The people of Lebanon are the ones that will pay the heaviest price in all of this. During the brief 2006 Lebanon war, Israel’s bombing campaign killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians, heavily damaged the country’s infrastructure, and displaced a million people. A new full-scale war would almost certainly be much more destructive, and much of southern Lebanon could end up being reduced to rubble like Gaza. This would be a catastrophe for a country that has already endured tremendous hardship over the last decade.

Forcing the Israeli government to halt its campaign in Gaza has been the best and probably the only way to prevent a larger conflagration. The U.S. refused to try this, and instead let its client get away with whatever it wanted. Failing to bring the war in Gaza to an end has paved the way for the coming disaster in Lebanon.

Update: Casualties from the airstrikes have risen to 274 killed, 1,024 wounded.

Second Update: Casualties have risen to 356 killed, 1,246 wounded.

Third Update: The number of fatalities has risen to 492. This is the highest one day death toll in Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War.