Name: Why Israel's strategy on Lebanon amounts to "collective punishment" | DW News
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Beirut is under fire as Israeli warplanes continue to pound the Lebanese capital On Wednesday in a further escalation of the U.

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Lebanese authorities say at least 12 people were killed when apartment buildings and several residential neighborhoods were struck.

The attacks, which Israel says are aimed at the Iran backed militant group Hezbollah, are some of the most intense on the Lebanese capital in decades and have hid far from Hezbollah's stronghold in the city's southern suburbs.

On Wednesday morning, Israel brought the war to the heart of Beirut.

It struck three densely populated neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital.

In the Bashura area, one building was completely flattened, shocking ordinary people who lived just meters away.

Israel called it a facility used by Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militant group backed by Iran.

Let them fight on the ground, not fight and displace innocent people, elderly people.

Israelis are just focused on causing pain.

Two other neighborhoods were also struck, including one close to government headquarters and several embassies.

Residents said they received no warning and the missiles caught them unawares when they were still in bed.

We were sleeping when we heard the bomb fall on us.

We came out and found the street like this.

We've been out on the street since 8:30am with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

Hezbollah's Al Mana TV station said the director of its political programs and his wife were killed in one of the strikes.

Israel's military confirmed striking Beirut and several locations in southern Lebanon.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said the strikes targeted Hezbollah facilities in response to dozens of rockets that were launched towards Israeli territory on Tuesday.

It said warnings had been issued for some locations.

Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes have now killed more than 900 people since March the second and displaced over a million more.

DW Beirut Bureau Chief Mohammad Shraiti sent us this update.

Just two streets away from where we're standing here in Bashura in central Beirut, Israeli attacks targeted at least two apartment buildings without prior warning.

And that suggests assassination attempts.

And this is adding to the growing frustration of the residents here in these neighborhoods as it accommodates tens of thousands of refugees who fled their homes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley.

This is a very central area, very strategic area.

It's only a few meters away from the headquarter of the government The Grand Sarai, the residence and the office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon.

And few meters away from the central Beirut souks and the waterfront.

He's a professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at London School of Economics.

Now, Israel has been escalating its attacks on Lebanon.

Is this mission from the Israeli perspective going according to plan?

Israel has just stopped this new round of war.

In the past 10 days or so, more than 1 million displaced Lebanese as a result of Israel's blanket evacuation orders, almost 1,000 killed civilians, mostly more than 100 children, more than 40 medical workers.

Really, you can summarize Israel's strategy in two words, collective punishment.

What Israel is trying to do is to basically punish the entire social base of Hezbollah, the Shiite population in South Lebanon, in the Backa Valley and in Dahya in Beirut.

And basically it does not really distinguish between military and civilian targets.

In fact, the United Nations Human Rights Office made it very clear that Israel's evacuation orders and the mass displacement amounts to a war crime.

And finally, Israel has just launched what it called a targeted ground operation.

And Israeli officials are preparing to call tens of thousands, in fact hundreds of thousand of Israel's reverse in order, quote, unquote, according to Israeli officials, to implement the Gaza model in Lebanon.

That's something I want to touch on a little later.

Israel of course says this is an operation aimed solely at Hezbollah.

How strong is the group at this point in time?

Well, Israel said the, the same thing about Hamas in Gaza.

In a two year war that has killed almost 70,000 Palestinians.

This is Israel says Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas.

But yet the brunt of Israeli attacks are basically on civilian targets.

That's the distinguish between civilians and military target.

Hezbollah's capabilities have been degraded a great deal in the first round in the 13 months war between Hezbollah and Israel.

But Hezbollah remains a major major paramilitary force.

Israeli officials have been surprised that Hezbollah continues to resist, continue to attack both inside Lebanon and attacking military targets and civilian targets in Israel as well.

And for your own viewers, Hezbollah is not just a military organization.

It's a social and political movement deeply entrenched in Lebanon.

So even though Israel could really degrade Hezbollah's capabilities more and in a greater measure that Israel cannot really eliminate Hezbollah because it's a social movement, a political movement, and

this is the Major challenge facing Hezbollah in the next few weeks and next few months and next few years, I would argue help us understand the role of the Lebanese government here.

Because they outlawed Hezbollah's military wing, they insist this is not their war.

How are they positioning themselves at a time their country is under heavy bombardment?

Well, I mean, you know, imagine a Lebanese government with a broken economy.

Imagine a Lebanese government that's trying to basically restart the economy to put the country together after a bloody war in 2024 in Lebanon.

And Lebanon really has had a horrible economy or hardly any economy in the past eight years.

The Lebanese president Joseph Aoun proposed direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

The first time ever that any Lebanese president uttered the word direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

And this tells you a great deal that Israel's strategy is to really punish the population, is to force the Lebanese government to surrender.

The only problem is the Lebanese government cannot even take on Hezbollah even if it wants, given the fact that Israel now is fully attacking in ground and air 24 hours a day.

So the Lebanese government is pressed between a hard rock, Israel's all out war against Lebanon and a harder place, it's diminishing capacity both economic and social to deal with this huge massive humanitarian crisis and take Hezbollah, take on Hezbollah, which is a deeply entrenched Lebanese social and political and paramilitary movement.

France has offered to mediate an end to hostilities.

What could that look like and would they be an appropriate peace broker in this setting?

Well, sadly and tragically, France is the only power that is trying very much to de escalate.

France is the only European power that's really trying to basically urge Israel not to escalate in particular all out ground offensive in Lebanon.

Sadly, I mean, you know, Israeli prime minister listens to one man and that's Donald Trump.

So Donald Trump has the final word, not President Macron.

And it seems that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a green light from President Trump.

And now the attention is on Iran given the fact that in the past three weeks, all out war, a region wide conflict.

So hardly anyone is paying attention to Lebanon at this particular stage because Iran is more important given the economic consequences, global economic consequences.

So without intervention by the United States by Trump, I fear that Israeli Prime Minister will use this particular moment to implement the so called Gaza model in Lebanon and raise villages and create a buffer zone.

You know, as it did between 1982 and 2000 in Lebanon.

Over a million Lebanese have been displaced since the fighting started.

Tens of thousands of Syrians have in turn left Lebanon at looking ahead how is this front of the war going to affect the region?

This is collective punishment by Israel in order to exert pressure on both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah.

And the fact is this really could become this massive humanitarian crisis could basically have major impact on state capacity.

You might have a huge migration crisis as the world witnessed during the Syrian war between 2011 and 2023.