How Israel is laying the groundwork for ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon

Hicham Safieddine | Middle East Eye

Domestic haggling over the disarmament of Hezbollah is overshadowing the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war.

Last autumn, Israel launched a brutal and bloody war on Lebanon, with devastating consequences. After fighting broke out on 8 October 2023, and up until a cessation-of-hostilities agreement was signed on 27 November 2024, Israeli attacks killed more than 4,000 people, including more than 300 children, and injured nearly 17,000.

Following Israel's full-scale escalation in September 2024, more than one million people were displaced. Israel's terror tactics ranged from the indiscriminate detonation of hand-held pagers in public spaces, to aerial carpet bombing of residential neighbourhoods, to wholesale assassinations of Hezbollah's top political and military brass, to a ground invasion that left a trail of death and destruction.

Since the ceasefire agreement, Israel's war has continued by other means. Despite Hezbollah's cessation of all military operations, Israeli drone surveillance and attacks, as well as occasional artillery shelling and air raids, are a near-daily occurrence.

Israeli forces still occupy several hilltops inside Lebanese territory that straddle the entire width of the border. Expansion and fortification of these bases are underway.

Media coverage and political analysis of the postwar period have largely centered on one of Israel's declared goals: the disarming of Hezbollah. In Lebanon, political forces allied with the US and Gulf states within Washington's orbit have turned this demand into their do-or-die mandate.

Championed by the vociferous Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and a more calculating President Joseph Aoun, the disarming of Hezbollah is framed as an indispensable step to restore Lebanese sovereignty - and a prerequisite for any economic recovery, including much-needed postwar reconstruction.

Domestic haggling over the fate of Hezbollah's arms in relation to state sovereignty overshadows the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war on Lebanon in a post-7-October reality. Israel's pursuit of unchecked regional military supremacy - and its corollary, the establishment of Greater Israel - has meant a new reality in southern Lebanon which, if unchecked, may amount to ethnic cleansing.

Current facts on the ground point in that direction, and are in line with longstanding Zionist colonial ambitions and policies dating back more than a century. 

Read more