Lebanon is the new Palestine: Israeli empire grows day by day

The world watched Gaza literally burning for two years. It watched children pulled from rubble, hospitals turned into ruins, and entire families erased from civil records. And it did nothing. Now, with the same weapons, the same logic, and the same impunity, Israel has opened a new front, and Lebanon is paying the price for the world’s complicity, or at least, its unjustifiable inaction.

Between March 2 and early June 2026, Israel’s large-scale military offensive in Lebanon killed nearly 3,400 people, injured more than 10,000 others, and caused displacement to over a million civilians – exceeding 20% of Lebanon’s population according to official Lebanese figures. Villages and towns along the southern border have been systematically razed, their residents ordered to flee northward under heavy bombardment, with no safe corridors and no guarantee of return.

This is not a war of self-defense. It is a crystal-clear expansionist aggression designed not to neutralize a military threat as claimed by Israeli leaders, but to redraw the map of southern Lebanon by force, benefiting from the U.S. administration’s cover and support, as well as from the weak global reaction.

Same script with new title

The parallels with Gaza are impossible to ignore, and entirely deliberate. In both theaters, Israel has employed the same playbook: indiscriminate bombing of densely populated civilian areas, forced displacement on a massive scale, systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, including the health facilities, and the deliberate silencing of journalists who dare to document the crimes.

On May 31, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to “expand the maneuver in Lebanon,” as Israeli forces seized the strategic Beaufort Castle in their deepest incursion into Lebanese territory in a quarter-century. The Israeli flag was raised above the ancient fortress, reflecting a colonial expansionism that Israeli leaders don’t hide.

This followed Netanyahu’s earlier vow to establish a “security buffer zone” across southern Lebanon, expelling civilians from their homes and rendering vast areas uninhabitable. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz explicitly ordered the destruction of civilian homes in depopulated areas and was more audacious in vowing to ethnically cleanse entire Shiite Lebanese communities from southern Lebanon.

This is not an accusation; Katz literally stated “ethnic cleansing” without shame or fear of consequence, as an objective of Israel’s aggression on Lebanon. Imagine if any other leader uttered such a word loudly and clearly.

Documented destruction

The evidence of systematic destruction is overwhelming and filmed by the soldiers themselves. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has described Israel’s actions as a “scorched-earth policy.” The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that Israeli forces are using explosives and land clearing to level entire residential neighborhoods, infrastructure and key facilities, permanently altering the landscape to make these areas uninhabitable.

This is a punitive strategy, designed to prevent civilians from ever returning. Evacuation orders have been issued for more than 14% of Lebanese territory, covering over 125 villages, in what United Nations investigators say amounts to forced displacement.

The targeting of journalists has been equally systematic. Since October 2023, over 260 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli forces, including at least 210 in Gaza and 14 in Lebanon. On March 28, Israeli forces struck a car carrying three journalists in the Jezzine area, killing them while they were covering the Israeli aggression and while they were holding clear marks showing their profession. U.N. experts called these killings “an abominable push by Israel to silence reporting on war crimes committed, just as it did in Gaza.”

And all of this, every bomb, every displacement order, every demolished village, has been backed by the U.S., which continues to provide Israel with all the needed ammunition, intelligence and surveillance technology to continue its genocidal campaign, as well as the diplomatic cover at the U.N. Security Council, where it has vetoed resolutions demanding cease-fires.

After the Israeli army warned the entire city to evacuate ahead of strikes, vehicles exit Tyre, southern Lebanon, June 9, 2026. (AFP Photo)

Relatives and friends of a man who was killed along with his son and daughter in an Israeli strike that targeted their car earlier this week attend their funeral in the Christian border village of Qlayaa, southern Lebanon, June 3, 2026. (AFP Photo)

Greenlight to kill

None of this would be possible without the world’s complicity, or at least the failure to take proper action that mounts to the chilling level of Israeli criminality and violations. The international community has responded to the Lebanon catastrophe with the same pattern of verbal condemnations that left Gaza to burn for two years.

Euro-Med Monitor has warned that the “global tendency to issue statements of concern and condemnation as mere platitudes, without implementing practical deterrent measures or accountability mechanisms, fosters a culture of systemic impunity.”

The numbers speak for themselves. Since a cease-fire was declared on April 16, brokered by the U.S., more than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon. By May 31, Israel had launched its broadest ground offensive in decades, shattering the cease-fire entirely under the watch of the world.

Cease-fires mean nothing when the party that violates them faces no consequences. When you add to that reality a steady airlift of military support and a diplomatic greenlight to push further, there is no limit to how far Israel can go in its colonial expansionist plans, not only in Lebanon, but across the entire region. Especially when Israeli leaders have already abandoned all moral pretense, and there is no consequence to pay or be afraid of.

The Gaza genocide was a test of whether the international community’s commitment to international law, human rights and the protection of civilians was real or merely rhetorical. The world failed that test, and Lebanon is now paying the price.

What is unfolding in southern Lebanon is not a war of necessity. It is a war of expansion, driven by a revisionist ideology that treats the entire region as Israel’s birthright. The Israeli government is not even trying to hide its aims. They are doing everything blatantly, as they are openly discussing annexation, ethnic cleansing and the permanent displacement of millions of civilians.

The only thing that will stop this Israeli cycle of violence, that will prevent Lebanon from becoming a second Gaza, is real consequences for the perpetrators, such as an arms embargo, sanctions, suspension of trade agreements, and last but not least, referrals to the International Criminal Court. Until the international community is willing to impose those consequences, Israel will continue to escalate. And the next target or front is already being mapped.

DAILYSABAH