What does US mean when it calls for de-escalation?
Said Arikat, an adjunct professor at the American University and a journalist with the Al Quds Daily newspaper, said that there is no contradiction in US policy when officials call for de-escalation while also promising to defend Israel.
“The US position is very clearly on the side of Israel,” Arikat told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.
“Israel could not have possibly waged such a strike [on Lebanon] without [an] American green light. After all, these are American aeroplanes and American weapons, including the F-35 fighter jets and the Hellfire missiles,” he said.
“We know that the US secretary of defence, Mr Lloyd Austin, has been in contact with his Israeli counterpart almost on [a] daily basis. For the US to say they’re really concerned, of course they are concerned, they don’t want to see this go out of hand. But when they talk about de-escalation, keep in mind this means Israel can strike but the others cannot respond.”
China condemns Israel’s attacks on Lebanon
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi told his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib, that Beijing strongly supports it in safeguarding its sovereignty and security and strongly condemns Israel’s recent attacks.
“We pay close attention to developments in the region, especially the recent explosion of communications equipment in Lebanon, and firmly oppose indiscriminate attacks against civilians,” China’s Foreign Ministry quoted Wang as saying after the pair met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday.
Wang said China would stand on the “side of justice and on the side of Arab brothers, including Lebanon”, according to the statement.
Netanyahu is waging war on Lebanon because he ‘failed in Gaza’
More from Arikat at Al Quds Daily. The analyst said that any talk of Israel reoccupying Lebanon “is foolhardy”.
“Because they have tried that before. Israel occupied Lebanon for a very long time and it was pushed out of it in 2000 largely by the resistance of the Hezbollah movement,” he noted.
Arikat said Netanyahu was waging war on Hezbollah because Israel has “failed in Gaza”.
“Netanyahu stated three goals: to decapitate Hamas, to free the hostages by force and to change the regime in Gaza. And he’s failed in all three. Now they’ve added another dimension to this war, resetting people back in their villages and hometowns and so on. But that is not likely to happen,” he said.
“Because… we will definitely see an escalation on the part of Hezbollah over the next few days. So we’re likely to see more Israelis leaving their homes and towns going deeper into deeper into Israel.”
Arikat added that the US is not pushing Israel “sincerely enough or strong enough” for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“In this partnership, it’s the Americans who are the senior partner, they’re the ones that supply the weapons, the green light and protection at the UN,” Arikat told Al Jazeera. But the US has failed to use that leverage, he said
Lebanon is now ‘No 1 arena of this war’ – Analyst
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has expressed “grave concern” for the wellbeing and safety of civilians residing in southern Lebanon following Israel’s widespread attacks on Monday.
UNIFIL said it was vital to “fully recommit” to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Under the resolution, adopted in 2006 to bring an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, UN peacekeepers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire along the 120km (75-mile) demarcation line, or Blue Line, between Israel and Lebanon.
In light of these developments, Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, says he believes Israel’s focus has shifted away from Gaza, describing the situation in Lebanon as an “all-out war”.
‘Non-stop Israeli air strikes everywhere’ as people fled south Lebanon
Tens of thousands of people fled their homes and they really didn’t have much time before they had to evacuate following the orders by the Israeli army.
We were in southern Lebanon and we saw people pack whatever they could to make their way further north. Some moved to the southern city of Sidon, that’s approximately 40 kilometres south of Beirut. Others reached Beirut, others even went further north.
Whole families. People were scared. They were afraid and they were concerned about what would happen next. Some of the families we spoke to said that they had to escape while there was bombardment around them. There were nonstop air strikes almost everywhere you looked. You didn’t know which road was safe, even along the main highway linking south Lebanon to Beirut, we saw air strikes along that highway.
The Lebanese government is talking about opening shelters in schools, because schools have now been closed. They are saying that they are ready to care for approximately 10,000 people. But from what we saw on that highway, there are going to be many more people who are going to need assistance.
This is an impoverished society, a country where the economy has all but collapsed. And it’s also a state which is nearly bankrupt. So there is a lot of concern among these people about how long they are going to be displaced because already in 11 months of fighting, 110,000 people have been displaced from border villages.
And what we understand from the UN is that 150,000 people live up to 10 kilometres from the border. So they have been in the line of fire and it is those people who have left their homes.
Lebanese people who fled the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes blocked in heavy traffic on a highway that links to Beirut city
