Amidst Lebanon Attacks, Western Actors Must Reign-In Israel’s destabilising role in the region
London, 19th September: Earlier this week, thousands of explosives planted within pagers, walkie-talkie devices and other household electronics led to widespread destruction and injury within Lebanon. The series of attacks, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel’s Mossad agency, are reckless and violent actions that killed at least 34 people, including children as young as nine.
Israel’s allies including the United Kingdom and the United States are yet to substantively comment on the attack, let alone issue condemnation. Such attacks would rightly be criticised as acts of terror, had they been carried out by any actor besides Israel.
The West continues to acquiesce to Israel’s campaign of regional aggression, while demanding ‘restraint’ from those who have been attacked. Israel’s attacks have proved to be a significant destabilising force in the region and Israel’s allies must reign in this cross-border campaign of crudely targeted attacks, where innocent civilians are killed and deemed collateral damage for Israeli military objectives. Failing that, thousands more innocent civilians in Israel’s neighbouring countries will be made victim, while the reprisal attacks Israel anticipates will likely be devastating for its own civilians.
This week’s attacks in Lebanon have been by-nature indiscriminate. Tuesday’s explosion of pager devices, widely used by medical staff, has caused serious casualties in hospitals. Wednesday’s detonations included exploding household appliances, including solar panels. These are not targeted attacks: the over 4000 injuries, and at least 34 killed, are not reserved to ‘Hezbollah’ fighters. Two of those killed are children.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon include its early use of white phosphorous, rightly decried as a war crime, rocket attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians, including aid workers, in clear breaches of Geneva Conventions and targeting of consular buildings, that shows disdain for the Vienna Conventions. Israel’s attacks on other countries in the region have
likewise been conducted without concern for the civilian ‘collateral damage’. Two airstrikes conducted by in Israel against Yemen in July reportedly caused more civilian casualties, with 14 killed and 90 injured, than 225 US-UK strikes in Yemen combined.
Throughout this all, the United Kingdom and United States have failed to hold its ally to account regarding these acts of aggression, which are either deliberately or recklessly endangering civilians, while urging ‘restraint’ from the target countries. While Global North actors speak of their wish to prevent ‘regional escalation’, their actions do not match up to this. The UK urged ‘calm heads and de-escalation’ after Israel’s killing of dozens and injuring of thousands this week. Omitting any allocation of blame and refusing to scrutinise Israel’s actions only emboldens the rogue state. Serious approaches to de-escalation would criticise all escalatory violence, irrespective of whether or not the destabilising country is an ally.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.
– Reporting of the civilian casualties of Israel’s latest attacks in Lebanon (Reuters),
– Foreign Office urges ‘calm heads’ after deadly pager explosions in Lebanon (Independent)
– The indiscriminate nature of previous attacks on Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen
– War crimes in Israel’s previous attacks in Lebanon, including its use of White Phosphorous (Amnesty International) and its killing of aid workers (Human Rights Watch)
– Civilian casualties in Syria airstrikes in March (BBC News)
– Civilian casualties in Yemen airstrikes in July (Yemen Data Project)