On September 20, Israel launched its largest attack on Beirut since 2006, marking the third significant strike since the war against Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Earlier, on January 2, Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed, and on July 30, Hezbollah’s chief military leader Fuad Shukr was eliminated. This time, the target was Ibrahim Muhammad Aqil, Shukr’s successor, along with the leadership of the Radwan forces, Hezbollah’s elite special unit. Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of 16 of its fighters, including two senior commanders of Radwan forces—Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmad Mahmud Wahbeh.
Among the dead was also Ahmad Mahmud Wahabi, head of a Hezbollah training center responsible for operations against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) along the Lebanon-Israel border. The commanders killed in the Israeli strike, who were attending a meeting at the time, had extensive combat experience, including in Syria, where some participated in operations against the Islamic State (ISIS), suffering heavy losses. According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, among the dead were three children aged 6, 4, and 10, along with seven women and several unidentified bodies. Sixty-eight people were injured. Israeli reports claim that 496 militants were eliminated, including senior commanders with significant experience.
As before, Netanyahu’s government is employing extreme methods to achieve its foreign policy goals, including mass remote detonations of electronic devices, which have caused numerous deaths and injuries. These actions are driven by a desire for survival and further regional expansion, with Israel appears to be attempting to create new realities, feeling a sense of impunity and ignoring weak verbal protests. Notably, the detonations began the day after US envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel to seek calm along the Israel-Lebanon border. For almost a year, he has been shuttling between Beirut and Jerusalem, seeking a diplomatic resolution to end the rocket attacks that have forced tens of thousands of people to flee border communities on both sides, while the US continued supplying arms to Netanyahu’s government.
Northern Israel, in its post-1950s and mid-1960s borders, constitutes 80% of historical Galilee, a region originally designated in 1947 for the yet-to-be-established state of Palestinian Arabs, later occupied by Zionists. Today, over 100,000 Arab refugees from this region are in Lebanon, and no fewer than 50,000 are in Syria (officially registered there). This factor alone contributes to the radicalization of anti-occupation resistance among Galilean and broader Palestinian Arabs.
Israeli sources report that the Arab population in Galilee is growing faster than the Israeli one, allegedly due to Tel Aviv’s “pro-Arab” policies in the region. This growth includes seasonal workers from Lebanon, Syria (via Lebanon), and neighboring Palestinian territories. However, Israeli settlers who officially come to Galilee on a temporary basis often stay permanently, with government-supported settlements turning into long-term communities.
As DW reported on December 9, 2023, the right of Palestinians to return, including to Galilee, was enshrined in UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (1974) and the Geneva Convention (1951). However, this right “ceased to play a significant role in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in Oslo in 1994 and is not mentioned in subsequent UN Security Council resolutions on the conflict.”
According to recent UN data from July 2023, Lebanon hosts around 250,000 Palestinian refugees (some estimates suggest 500,000), with at least 65% of them residing in southern Lebanon. Furthermore, about 80% of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live below the poverty line, compared to 60% in Syria, where Damascus provides material support and free healthcare to Palestinians.
In 1982, after Israel’s first major invasion of Lebanon, including Beirut, and the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila camps by local Phalangists supported by the IDF, Tel Aviv revisited a 1950s plan to annex 80% of southern Lebanon. Although these expansionist ambitions were shelved at the time, the ongoing situation in southern Lebanon suggests that Israel may still pursue them.
Tel Aviv’s desire to “punish” Lebanon, which is politically and territorially divided, is also driven by the recent political and diplomatic rapprochement between Beirut and Damascus, worrying imperialist forces. In October 2023, Syrian and Lebanese foreign ministers Faisal Mekdad and Abdallah Bou Habib issued a joint statement in Damascus, rejecting “any attempts to forcibly relocate the Palestinian people” (in response to Israel’s proposal to move Gaza’s Arab population to the south and along the border with Egypt). They also called for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Golan territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
In 1979-85, under a Tel Aviv plan, there were efforts to create a puppet state, “Free Lebanon,” in southern Lebanon, with collaborators from the now-defunct South Lebanon Army. Since the mid-1980s, the IDF has maintained control over a narrow strip (70 km long and up to 25 km wide) along the Lebanon-Galilee border. For a potential ground invasion in a Third Lebanon War, Israel has developed experience from past operations.