Escalating Violence in Lebanon and Gaza: A War that Shows No Signs of Abating
The violence in Lebanon and Gaza continues to escalate, with Hezbollah and Israel engaged in a full-blown war that has already claimed over 1,110 lives. The Israeli military has launched an intensified wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon, while Hezbollah fighters are confronting Israeli troops in the border region.
In the first reported Israeli air strike on the northern Tripoli region, Palestinian militant group Hamas said that the "Zionist bombardment" of the Beddawi refugee camp killed a commander, his wife, and two daughters. The escalation comes just days before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
As the violence continues, civilians are paying the price. Ibrahim Nazzal, a resident of downtown Beirut, said, "We want the war to stop so we can go back to our land. All our homes are gone. I don’t know what we will go back to." Over 374,000 people, mostly Syrian refugees, have sought refuge in Syria in the final week of September.
The conflict has also had a significant impact on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. An official with medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told AFP that life was becoming "impossible" in Gaza, urging greater humanitarian efforts. "As cold weather approaches, this is going to go very badly," said MSF’s president for France, Isabelle Defourny, back from a mission to southern Gaza.
The United States, Israel’s top military supplier, is working to "rally the rest of the world and our allies" to prevent the fighting from spreading even further. However, the chances of a ceasefire seem remote, with both sides digging in for a long and bloody conflict.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has urged commitment "in actions, not just words" to Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution stipulated that only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
In a visit to Beirut on Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that his government backs "efforts for a ceasefire" that would be acceptable to Hezbollah and come "simultaneously with a ceasefire in Gaza". However, with no signs of a breakthrough in sight, the people of Lebanon and Gaza remain caught in the crossfire of a war that seems to have no end in sight.
