Mar 18, 2026, 20:41

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 20:41:24 +0000
israel, lebanon, palestine, hezbollah, miitarism, stateterrorism, zionism

"Anyone following Israeli media discourse in recent days may be experiencing a severe case of deja vu. Alongside euphoric reactions to the US-Israeli pummelling of Iran (backed by 93% of the Jewish-Israeli population), politicians and prominent commentators are now clamouring for an escalation in Lebanon – hoping to see a repeat of the devastation Israel has wreaked in Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have already killed close to 1,000 people in the past two weeks, after Hezbollah resumed its rocket fire into northern Israel in support of Iran. The Israeli army has issued blanket evacuation orders covering a vast area in the country’s south, displacing over a million people from their homes. On Monday, it announced the launch of a “targeted” ground invasion, and officials have briefed the media that they are preparing to mobilise hundreds of thousands of reservists in order to implement “the Gaza model, but in Lebanon”.

Israel’s leaders are not hiding what comes next. “Very soon, Dahiyeh will resemble Khan Younis,” warned Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, earlier in March, referring respectively to a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut and a city in southern Gaza that the Israeli army has almost completely razed to the ground. Zvi Sukkot, a member of the government from Smotrich’s party, urged: “We must conquer territory in southern Lebanon, destroy the villages there and annex the territory to the state of Israel.”"