‘A nightmare’: Lebanese Americans anxious, angry as Israel attacks homeland

Ali Dabaja says Lebanese Americans have been struggling for the past 12 months with “work-life-genocide” balance as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

But now, with the Israeli military unleashing its firepower on Lebanon over the past week, the community is at a “boiling point”.

Israel’s large-scale bombing campaign in Lebanon has hit close to home for Dabaja, a Detroit-area physician. His cousin, Batoul Dabaja-Saad, was killed along with her husband and three children in an Israeli air strike on their home in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.

“There is disbelief. There is anger, and there is the feeling of loss – tremendous loss,” Dabaja told Al Jazeera.

Pro-Palestinian protesters rally outside Netanyahu’s hotel in New York

As we reported yesterday, crowds of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of New York rebuking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in the city for the UN General Assembly.

The protests continued late last night, where demonstrators gathered outside his hotel chanting against his actions in Gaza.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address the UNGA later today.

More displacement, fuel crisis in Lebanon’s Bekaa as Israeli attacks continue

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) is reporting that Israeli forces bombed two towns near the city of Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley, causing large fires to break out.

The agency said the first attack at 2am local time on Friday (23:00 GMT) “broke a cautious calm that lasted throughout” Thursday and hit a two-storey building in the town of Duris. The attack caused damage to the building and set fire to a vehicle in its garage.

The second assault destroyed a building that contained a pharmacy, an antiques shop, a carpet shop and two empty apartments, causing a large fire that took four hours to extinguish.

There was no immediate report of casualties.

NNA said supermarkets in the area closed due to the attacks, resulting in a fuel crisis and a shortage of essential supplies.

Baalbek city is also witnessing internal displacement, although many people are staying in their homes despite the danger, it added. The attacks in the Bekaa Valley followed a “series of violent raids” in southern Lebanon, including the city of Nabatieh, as well as air attacks on the town of Joya near the city of Tyre.

Air raid sirens, air defence systems activated in Haifa

Israeli Army Radio is reporting that airborne attack warning systems have been activated in Israel’s major northern city this morning.

Israel Hayom, a local newspaper, says that a number of rockets were fired towards Haifa and its surrounding areas, while video footage published by Israel’s public broadcaster shows air defence systems intercepting targets over the skies of the city.

There has been no comment from Hezbollah on this attack as of yet, but we will keep you updated as information comes in.

Five soldiers killed in Israeli strike on Syria-Lebanon border

Five Syrian soldiers have been killed overnight in an Israeli strike on the Syria-Lebanon border, SANA has reported. According to the Syrian news agency, one person has also been wounded.

Israel has not claimed the attack. On Thursday, the Israeli army had claimed a separate strike on the Syria-Lebanon crossing, which it said was carried out to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah.

Israel’s Gallant says attacks against Hezbollah will intensify

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says the military will keep targeting Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group until northern Israel is safe again.

“We are hitting Hezbollah very hard over the past year and in particular over the past few weeks,” he said during a visit to the northern town of Safad, according to The Times of Israel newspaper.

“We will continue and increase this effort – we plan to bring security to the towns in the north and to safely return home those who evacuated,” Gallant added.

Hope fades for temporary Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire bid

The Israelis are seeing the ongoing attacks on Lebanon as the victory against Hezbollah, which is why we’ve had this political back-and-forth when it comes to this potential temporary ceasefire.

At first, the information leaks were indicating that the Israelis were onboard. The moment there was a huge political backlash from within Netanyahu’s government, he backtracked.

Now, the US officials are expressing a lot of frustration and doubt on something that they say Israelis were initially onboard.

The message is that the Israeli military campaign is going to continue until the Israelis say they are going to be able to return 60,000 evacuees to the north of the country.

Politicians in northern Israel oppose US-French truce proposal: Report

David Azulai, Israel’s Metula Regional Council chairman, has been quoted by Israeli media as saying that the US-French ceasefire proposal will ensure “the next October 7”, referring to the attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian fighters last year.

The politician in northern Israel also said that the Israeli government would be responsible for the consequences if the 21-day truce deal is sealed, pausing hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Azulai said that recent days have highlighted Hezbollah’s capabilities and that “this government of [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu” must “remove the threat” to avoid another “October 7 next year”.

Amir Sofer, the Upper Galilee Regional Council’s chairman, was quoted by Israeli media as saying that while “there is a time for negotiations, this is not the time”.

Hold on.

What about the previous 3000 years?

Really this history begins here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

733 BC, the first time people tried to remove the Jews from their homeland and begun the never ending fight for who actually owned the land.

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Anyone that thinks this Jewish-Muslim war is only 200 years old, doesn't know what they are talking about.

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My take is that there are not good guys and bad guys here.  Just arseholes.

Sometimes the Jews have the upperhand, sometimes the Muslims have the upperhand.  Depends on which centry you are looking at.

At least 50 children killed in two days in Lebanon: UNICEF

The UN agency for children says the Israeli air attacks on Lebanon in recent days have already killed more children per day than the 2006 war, which lasted for 33 days and killed about 1,200 people.

“The average number of children killed per day in Lebanon this week is more than double the number of children killed per day during the country’s devastating 2006 conflict,” UNICEF said.

An estimated 400 children, or about 12 children per day, were killed then compared with 50 children killed in a span of two days, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

Watch this speech




There are a lot of arseholes on both sides, yet the reality is over 15,000 innocent children slaughtered, 17,000 orphaned, the rest traumatized.

We live in 2024 now, post WW2, in a world that had accepted Humanitarian and International law. Israel is currently destroying both and bringing us back to the ages of barbarism.


It's not a Jewish-Muslim war, it's a Zionist war for control of all land in Greater Israel. Zionism is not 3,000 years old, established by Theodor Herzl in 1897.

Before the Zionist migration movement began Jews and Muslim were living together in the area. Zionists decided the Muslims needed to go to create an ethnocentric state, exclusively for Jews. That's what led to where we are now.

Holy balls.