7 Ways Israel Is Turning Lebanon Into Gaza
From targeting journalists and health workers to forcibly displacing over a million people, here’s how Israel is carrying out its genocidal Gaza playbook to kill, destroy, and occupy parts of Lebanon.
Israel isn’t hiding it. In the last month, its far-right government has been explicitly clear that it plans to do to southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut what it did to Gaza.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has warned that Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh will soon look “like Khan Younis,” a city in Gaza that Israel has left almost completely uninhabitable.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Israeli military to destroy the infrastructure near Lebanon’s border as it did in Rafah and Beit Hanoun, two cities in Gaza that Israel completely decimated.
We’re already seeing exactly how Israel’s plan is playing out. With the death toll already at more than 1,260, here are seven ways Israel is using its genocidal Gaza playbook to kill, decimate communities, and take over parts of Lebanon while flaunting international law in the process.
1. Killing Journalists
Over the weekend, Israel killed three Lebanese journalists – Fatima Ftouni, her brother Mohammed Ftouni, and Ali Shuaib – in targeted strikes on their vehicle, which was reportedly clearly marked as press. As it’s done in Gaza, where it’s killed over 250 Palestinian journalists, Israel attempted to justify its attack by claiming one of the reporters, Shuaib, was a militant.
But also, as it’s done after killing journalists in Gaza, Israel offered no tangible proof. Hezbollah rejected Israel’s claim that the journalist was part of its elite Rawdan Force. In an extremely rare admission, Israel told Fox it had photoshopped a photo showing Shuaib in a military uniform. “Unfortunately there isn’t really a picture of it, it was photoshopped,” the Israeli military said.
Israel, of course, said nothing of Fatima and Mohammed Ftouni.
2. Targeting Health Workers and Infrastructure
Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed more than 1,700 health workers across Gaza in what UN experts have labeled a “medicide.” We’re now witnessing another medicide take place in Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say that in just the last four weeks, Israel has killed more than 50 healthcare workers, targeted scores of ambulances and emergency service workers, and forced five hospitals to close, including, as the UN points out, four with maternity wards. One hospital in the southern city of Tyre has been hit at least five times, according to Al Jazeera. Nine hospitals have been damaged, and more than 50 primary healthcare centers have been forced to close, per the UN.
Israel uses the same types of allegations it uses in Gaza to attempt to justify its actions. It claims Hezbollah is using ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes. Of course, as we know from Gaza, these claims are baseless (remember the “Hamas headquarters” Israel insisted was under Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza?)
Regardless, targeting healthcare facilities unless there’s definitive proof that they’re being used for military purposes renders such infrastructure protected under international law, experts say.