Israeli strikes on Lebanon have been most intense and deadly in decades

For 10 days, Israel unleashed a relentless air campaign on Lebanon, striking over 3,600 Hezbollah-linked targets ahead of a ground offensive, according to IDF statements.

“Aside from Gaza, this is the most intense aerial campaign that we know of in the last twenty years,” said Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, a British conflict monitor.

The strikes have leveled entire residential blocks in south Beirut and devastated Hezbollah’s upper ranks, killing its leader Hasan Nasrallah and political deputy Nabil Kaouk. At least 1,400 people have been killed and 900,000 displaced since Israel accelerated its cross-border campaign, according to the Lebanese government.

Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging cross-border fire on Oct. 8, when Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets into Israel one day after Hamas militants breached Gaza’s border wall and attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. Hezbollah said it would continue its attacks until a cease-fire is reached in Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign.

Eighty percent of the strikes have been launched from Israel into Lebanon. The attacks have also become more deadly and indiscriminate: The majority of the more than 1,800 people killed in Lebanon in the past year have died since Sept. 20.

Fifty children died under Israeli bombardment on Monday and Tuesday — the United Nations estimates that’s double the rate of children killed during Lebanon’s 2006 war.

Hezbollah has fired roughly 1,750 rockets into Israel since Oct. 7, killing at least 30 Israelis, according to Haaretz.

Israel’s air defense systems have intercepted the majority of the projectiles fired by Hezbollah — including a missile allegedly aimed at the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, on Wednesday.

On Sept. 23 Israeli airstrikes killed 558 people across Lebanon — marking the single deadliest day since the country’s 15-year civil war.

The rate of bombardment on that day exceeded one strike per minute.

“The way Israel wages war is markedly different from that of its allies in terms of frequency and intensity of strikes,” said Tripp. “There is no comparison. The United States dropped 500 munitions in one day during the peak of its 2017 campaign against the Islamic State in Raqqa. Israel far exceeded this firepower, reporting strikes on 1,600 targets on Sept. 23 alone.”

Villages along Lebanon’s southern border have been hardest hit.

Satellite images, captured between Sept. 12-24, show more than 500 buildings damaged across Lebanon, according to a preliminary analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.

Israel’s intensive bombardment began days after an Israeli attack detonated thousands of pagers and two-way radios targeting Hezbollah’s members across Lebanon on Sept. 17 and 18, killing dozens and wounding thousands.

IDF Chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that Israel’s military operations would continue until Hezbollah members had been expelled from Lebanon’s southern border region, allowing around 60,000 Israelis to safely return home after months of cross-border attacks.

As a barrage of Iranian missiles crossed into Israeli airspace on Tuesday evening, a large number of tanks and troops had amassed along the country’s northern border, likely preparing for an operation that Israel has described as “limited, localized and targeted ground raids” to rout out Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, Israeli planes continued to bomb other parts of Lebanon, including the densely populated Cola neighborhood in southwest Beirut.

“We are not stopping. We keep striking and hitting them everywhere,” said Halevi, speaking to an IDF battalion stationed along Israel’s northern border. SOURCE: The Washington Post