A family of Shi’ite Muslim tobacco farmers from southern Lebanon is forced to flee Israeli threats and bombs. They’re one of the hundreds of thousands of families who’ve been displaced by Israel’s murderous assault on Lebanon. They find shelter in the northern town of Aitou, far from the fighting in the south. But on October 14, their house was targeted and bombed by Israel. The whole family was killed.
Many Lebanese had been helping their compatriots in distress, whether they were Shi’ite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians, Druze or from other groups. But now Israel’s indiscriminate bombings—especially of Shi’ites, the section of Lebanese society Hezbollah has its roots in—have spread fear and distrust. Israel has forcibly displaced over a million Lebanese, and now the Zionist state is making other Lebanese afraid to help them.
This is just one dimension of the criminal war Israel is waging in Lebanon—with full U.S. backing.
The Israeli-U.S. Means of Fighting Are Illegitimate and Criminal
Many urban areas look like canyons of devastation. Civil defense workers search smoking rubble from an Israeli airstrike in the Tayouneh area of Beirut, November 15, 2024. Photo: AP
Israel is indiscriminately bombing cities, suburbs and villages in Lebanon—using U.S. bombs and planes. It’s murdering whole families or bringing down entire apartment buildings, killing 3,452 people and wounding 14,599 others so far, most of them civilians. Many urban areas look like canyons of devastation, with bombed-out high-rise apartment buildings lining rubble-filled streets. In one 24-hour period (November 16), Israeli attacks killed 59 people and wounded another 182 across Lebanon.
These are war crimes and forms of collective punishment that target wide sections of the population—not just Hezbollah’s military personnel. Israel is carrying out massive destruction of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure—destroying dozens of towns and villages and damaging or destroying over 100,000 homes, all making it difficult if not impossible for millions to live. The World Bank estimates that Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have caused $8 billion in damage.
A few examples from just this past week:
- Sunday: an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including three children in the northern village of Almat.
- Monday and Tuesday: Israel demanded that people evacuate more than 30 towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
- Tuesday: Israeli struck 100 targets across Lebanon, killing at least 30 people, with missiles rained down on the neighborhoods south of Beirut after Israel demanded 11 buildings be evacuated. “Plumes of thick, acrid smoke rose above the skyline of the Lebanese capital after a heavy wave of missiles shook the area, sending schoolchildren running for cover miles from the blasts as Israeli surveillance drones buzzed overhead,” according to one report.
- Thursday: Israel attacked the Ghobeiry and Burj al-Barajneh neighborhoods south of Beirut—home to some 700,000 people but now largely empty because of Israel’s assault. Whole residential buildings were leveled. Across Lebanon, at least 37 people were killed, including 12 emergency rescue workers in Baalbek, killed when Israel targeted the city’s civil defense center.
The Israeli-U.S. War Aims Are Illegitimate and Criminal
Israel and the U.S. claim Israel is waging a war of “self-defense” and only targeting Hezbollah’s military forces and structures.
These are lies. Israel is waging a war of aggression. Israel is a Jewish-supremacist outpost for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, founded on the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. For the past year, Israel has been waging a limited military conflict with Lebanon’s Iran-backed, Islamic fundamentalist organization Hezbollah. On September 23, Israel massively escalated this battle to full-on war. And on October 1, it invaded southern Lebanon. It is now waging war to crush any resistance to its genocide in Gaza and ongoing atrocities in the Palestinian West Bank, as well as opposition to its existence as a Zionist state and U.S. imperialist domination of the Middle East from any quarter.1
Now Israel is vowing to continue its attack “with full force until the goals of the war are achieved,” in the words of the Israeli “defense” minister. One of those goals is the self-proclaimed “right” of Israel to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty and attack anywhere in that country anytime it sees fit.
The U.S. imperialists are actively arming, funding and supporting this slaughter in Lebanon. They see this war by Israel as being in the interests of their global empire, and an opportunity to strengthen pro-U.S. forces in Lebanon and reduce the influence of Hezbollah and its backer, Iran.
What Are YOU Willing to Do to Stop This Nightmare?
According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of children have been displaced and more than 150 killed since October 1, 2023. This father consoles his four-year-old, wounded by an Israeli airstrike on a densely populated neighborhood south of Beirut, November 5, 2024. Photo: AP
Think about the parents whose children have been traumatized—or killed—and think about the children who’ve lost parents. This is happening every single day in Lebanon thanks to Israel and the U.S. And now Israel’s defense minister has declared, “In Lebanon, there will be no cease-fire and there will be no respite” and that Israel will continue to hit the country “with full force.”
And if that’s not enough, the carnage in Lebanon is escalating the danger of a wider, regional war that could draw in other global powers and could even spiral into nuclear conflict.
None of this would be happening without the United States—the country you live in. If children being slaughtered, families being forced to leave their homes and losing everything, and hospitals being deliberately destroyed fills you with sickness and rage, then you need to muster the courage and determination to do three things.
First, find ways yourself and join with others to visibly and vocally oppose the illegitimate Israeli-U.S. war in Lebanon and genocide in Gaza.
Second, dig into Israel and Palestine, the Middle East and U.S. Imperialism, the Revolution Humanity Needs: A selection of writings from Bob Avakian on why these unjust wars of empire keep happening, particularly in the Middle East.
Third, and most important, dare to dig into what it will actually take to end these endless wars. And you can’t seriously do that without answering the challenge revolutionary leader Bob Avakian posed in his social media messages @BobAvakianOfficial:
So, those of you who are not afraid of the truth: Get ready for messages coming at you, bringing the reality of what is going on in the biggest and deepest dimensions—and most of all the reality of the revolution we urgently need, the revolution we have a real chance to bring about, right in this country, right in this intense and momentous time we are living in now. (@BobAvakianOfficial, REVOLUTION #1)
