"Israel's defence minister has said a buffer zone will be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel will keep security control over a swathe of the territory even after the end of the current war against the armed group Hezbollah."
"JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - Israel will destroy all homes in Lebanese villages near the border and 600,000 people who fled the south will not be allowed home until northern Israel is secure, the defence minister said on Tuesday, vowing to inflict Gaza-like destruction in the area.
Israel Katz reiterated Israeli plans to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, saying that it would maintain control over a swathe of territory up to the Litani River once the war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group ended."
The sovereignity of foreign states and there territorial integrity according to international law.
"Under present international law, annexation no longer constitutes a legally admissible mode of acquisition of territory as it violates the prohibition of the threat or use of force (Use of Force, Prohibition of). Therefore annexations must not be recognized as legal."
Sovereignity isn't infallible, and Israel has a very clear Article 51 argument due to Hezbollah's attacks.
As long as it's temporary (even if the end date isn't clear yet), it's an occupation, not an annexation. Occupations can certainly be legal if necessary for self-defense.
The actual solution would be to enforce UNSC 1701 and disarm Hezbollah. Until that finally happens, Israel has no choice but to respond to cross-border terrorist attacks.
Israel is instructing civilians to leave the areas where there is fighting as is their responsibility under international law. When Hezbollah is disarmed by Lebanon and the war is over they can return.
It's been the case in all the previous wars fought in Lebanon.
The question is why do people keep falling for the arguments against Israel when clearly Israel was attacked from Lebanon, is not attacking any neighbor that does not attack it, and is responding just like any other normal country would when it is attacked.
That's a very nice precedent, any country that has IDF soldiers holidaying as tourists must take note. Go and have your legal combat kill of a idf military combatant.
I think you might be the one falling for propaganda, my friend. Hamas is evil. Hezbollah is evil. Their behavior is indefensible.
Responding by leveling the homes of millions of civilians, holding people in an open air prison. Limiting food, water, and medicine, killing journalists, building an apartheid state, systematically using rape as a means of controlling prisoners, deploying white phosphorus on civilian populations.... these are not just or reasonable responses.
Israel's actions are truly horrifying in scale. The violence aimed at civilians, the systemic abuse of people just trying to survive on subsistence.
I'm not falling for any arguments. I'm simply observing what Israel is doing and saying, "this is truly awful. The scale of misery they are deploying against their enemies is unconscionable."
This time the tone is different in Lebanon. The things they say point to an occupation of the south and that shia are not gonna be welcome back any time soon.
The Pentagon e.g. would be a legitimate target for Iran and if in their operations against the US they know that your neighborhood is a military target then they can and should warn you and allow you to leave. I doubt that the US military stores rockets in your basement but if they are then that would be a concern. That said if you were in range of Iran's rockets I don't think they'd worry much about e.g. firing cluster munitions on Washington DC like they do on Tel Aviv or Israeli cities.
The person you are replying to is probably someone who won't understand that the genocide Israel is perpetrating, the settler colonialism, the systemic abuses and torture and rape of prisoners, the invasion are all justified somehow.
Some people cannot take a step back and consider other perspectives, unfortunately.
Edit: see? Their response, "I like it"? This person is deeply troubled and misanthropic.
Given the level of bloodthirst in Israeli society currently, and the accounts of torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody, I’m afraid that something similar is just around the corner for Lebanese as well.
It was the incessant attempts by Israel to invade Lebanon and the inaction of the Lebanese government but I guess your answer responds to your underlying allegiances.
Because of the constant invasion and denial of recognition of the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinian and after decades of pogroms and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages.
Sounds like you already picked a side. And strangely enough its for a place that you have most likely never been before, and even more puzzling to me, its the side that is the enemy of your culture, which I am assuming you live in USA/Europe/West.
Enemy of my culture? Picked a side? Never been there?
I have eyes and I have a heart capable of empathy. I have a belief that all humans deserve wellbeing, even people I disagree and dislike.
Watching a genocide unfold is clearly antithetical to my beliefs, no matter what the culture of the victims is. Watching a genocide unfold and being against it does not require first hand knowledge of the place. And this conflict is not a team sport -- I can be opposed to Hamas AND opposed to the genocide being perpetrated.
you do not seem to have the heart and empathy for the israelis being attacked and killed by rockets and drones and killed in terrorist attacks and seem to be very certain in information you gathered online and not from direct experience. You definitely picked a side - and blaming one side for all evil, especially in this conflict simply shows just how selective your empathy is, again, especially considering You have no personal stakes. you are demonizing a whole nation under deadly attacks and going to great lengths closing your eyes to the suffering of people you demonize
I think you have not been reading my posts where I unambiguously and repeatedly condemn both Hamas and Hezbollah, and consider firing rockets into civilian areas a war crime.
You seem to believe there's a right side and a wrong side to this conflict. I think there are two wrong sides to this conflict, but the scale and magnitude between the two sides is enormous.
I have empathy for all the non combatants here. I don't have empathy for the groups engaged in killing, displacing, torturing, etc.
How many people died from those terrorist attacks and how many innocent Palestinian children were purposely shot in the head? Whose leaders are currently on national TV proclaiming that their main goal in life is ethnic cleansing?
80% of surveyed Israeli Jews agree even partially with the phrase "there are no innocent civilians in Gaza".
over 5000 israelis and under 10 (or I assume 0) innocent palestinian children purposely shot in the head (but yes, in the history of israel there must have been some psychopaths in the army, hopefully punished).
you realize Teheran has a square with a countdown to complete destruction of Israel and they make people chant death to Israel death to America as part of normal culture?
did you survey personally or did Aljazeera do? Liar
Why do you turn this forum into a house of lies? There is a limitless supply of testimonies of Western journalists dating from decades relaying how the IDF purposely shoots children in the head in Gaza and the West Bank. Haaretz has covered it. MSF has covered it. There are testimonies from all over the world. Every single day we have dozens of incidents of West Bank settlers destroying Palestinian villages and they are being recorded by Jewish Israeli activists.
Iranians, believe it or not, have not been in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, unlike Israel which currently destroying literally every single standing building in Gaza and purpusely starving its population, with explicit mentions that Lebanon will follow "the Gaza model".
Is Israel firing into Christian neighborhoods? I think I saw something saying they were not. That seems consistent with Israel’s strikes being intended to target Hezbollah specifically (because Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel at the outset of the military operation in Iran).
“Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest Fr. Pierre al-Rahi, … was killed in this village in southern Lebanon during an Israeli artillery tank fire on a house March 9, 2026 … al-Rahi had earlier refused, along with other priests, to obey an order by the Israeli military to evacuate the Christian village of Qlayaa”
That's an exception that proves the rule. For the most part Israel is not firing at either Sunni or Christian villages. There is also more to this specific incident so people should research it.
Thanks. It seems a bit more complicated than I’d assumed. I probably should spend more time researching these things. I’d seen a BBC prince on the Christian section of Tyre and extrapolated. I had previously heard about the priest. I think these was one in Gaza as well. Such terrible, bloody times these are.
Seriously, this again. In the middle of Hezbollah controlled territory there were firefights with UN peacekeepers ... and of course the people who did this "were IDF soldiers". Of course ... that's the explanation.
Does anyone still believe this? I mean, even if it's technically true, it is very well known Hezbollah sneaks as close as they can to UN bases, and then fires rockets at Israeli civilians from there, intentionally. And yes, I'm sure that this creates more than a bit of tension.
But even if that did result in a firefight ... it's not Israel that's responsible. Nobody seriously believes that.
"Technically true".... it's pretty clear that Israel has, on multiple occasions, fired at UN peacekeeping bases. This is not like "Heat of the moment" failures. These are established sites with UN peacekeepers who had been there for some time.
"Oops, our tanks opened fire on UN forces." Is a weird defense of it keeps happening. Once, maybe, but a healthy military would learn to stop that in the future. Mistakes happen. Repeated mistakes seem like a strategy.
Interesting, based on your comment Hezbollah did that from Lebanese territories for no reason.
"Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli forces have also launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon."
Last I checked Lebanon was a separate country. So Lebanon decided to join the war against the US and Israel and now the consequences of that are Israel's fault?
Wow-wow just stop that bs. Without Israel people in the region would be murdering each other just like they did in Syria, in the Iran-Iraq war, in Yemen, in Lebanon's civil war etc. Maybe if those countries stopped attacking Israel they wouldn't be in war Mr. warmonger.
EDIT: It's worth mentioning that an attack on another country is not a legal reason according to international law to attack a third country. The critics of Israel and the US are claiming those started an "illegal war" on Iran so by that same rationale Lebanon started an illegal war on Israel.
> Israel stopped violently expropriating Arab lands
This is objectively happening in the West Bank and Gaza.
> assaulting and raping Arabs without consequences.
This is also objectively happening. A group of IDF soldiers were filmed raping a man to death. Their punishment? Literally nothing. They are cheered by some.
You cannot possibly believe that these sorts of behaviors are helping calm things.
That's not true, he's alive and was released to Gaza in a hostage-for-prisoner exchange.
> Their punishment? Literally nothing.
It's probably hard to win a case without the victim to testify. The video is something, but far too low-quality to prove who did what beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors can't ignore evidentiary standards and don't like to lose cases.
At least they were detained and investigated. Can you say the same of the individuals who paraded their rape victims around the streets of Gaza?
Apologies. I did conflate two instances of rape. There are so many, it's possible that I combined two - one where the victim had a ruptured bowel, lung damage, broken ribs, and a torn anus; and another that lead to a death.
That said, when Ben-Gvir says any action is justifiable, including rape, in defense of Israel and when the person who leaked the video gets arrested and when a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute finds the majority of Israelis support not investigating claims of rape it's very difficult for me to be credulous towards the idea that these are just a couple bad apples.
Most Gazans don’t believe Hamas raped anyone. It’s disingenuous to claim they were celebrating rape. Can you please share any public, non-anonymous accounts from Oct 7th either rape victims or witnesses?
Conversely, Israeli politicians and protestors have explicitly agitate for the right to rape detainees.
I'm not sure what the point is of piling on different accusations. Only one has any evidence, but let's just imagine for the sake of argument that they're all true. Then Israel has at least several criminals, just like every other country on the planet.
Is the idea that it's okay to post misinformation about Israelis because Israelis are bad? If I can identify several Canadian criminals, then since we've established that Canadians are bad people, is it fine to post misinformation about other Canadians?
To reassert the lost context, here is the original claim and counter-claim:
>>> Maybe if Israel stopped violently expropriating Arab lands, and assaulting and raping Arabs without consequences. It’s really not that complicated.
>> This is nonsense and you know it.
It’s apparent from the copious evidence presented here (with which you do not engage) that the original claim was, in fact, not nonsense. A real counter-argument would show 1) that these events did not occur or 2) that there were consequences for the assailants.
> Then Israel has at least several criminals, just like every other country on the planet.
Irrelevant false balance on a literally global scale. May I use this example in the logic text I’ve been workshopping?
The nonsense is the application of impossible standards like "Israel should have zero criminals" or "Israel should have a successful conviction for every suspected crime, never mind evidentiary standards".
If someone wants to make a serious argument about a systematic problem in Israel, that requires data, not a few accusations. For example, at least 10 of 110 released hostages were reportedly sexually assaulted in Hamas captivity [1], and there were zero arrests for it.
If Gazan detainees in Israeli custody experienced SA at the same rate, that would be over a thousand cases of SA. The parent also broadened their search to include SA allegations against Israelis in the West Bank, so they would need to show ~300k cases just to argue equivalence.
If we were to accept all the parent's sources as reliable, that's 12 reported cases of SA. They're 0.004% of the way there.
And they are also using humans as shield? Is it only the enemies of Israel that use human shields or do criminals/terrorists in Israel (if there is such a thing) or any other country do that too?
> The displacement is due to Israel's warning to civilians to leave the area of fighting for their protection
Most modern instances of ethnic cleansing are justified as military necessities.
E.g.: Armenian genocide
“Article 1—During war time, army and corp commanders and their deputies and commanders of fortified posts are obliged to destroy any assault or resistance and violently restore order with military forces in the case of opposition, armed attacks or resistance directed against the government orders, the defense of homeland and the preservation of public order.
Article 2—Army, independent corp and division commanders are allowed to transfer and relocate the village and town population in matters related to the military affair or if they feel there is an activity of espionage and treason.”
You can't have it both ways though. If Israel fires back at Hezbollah and civilians are killed then it is committing war crimes and if it asks the civilians to leave then it is committing war crimes. In previous wars in Lebanon civilians were asked to leave and then eventually returned and so there are numerous similar examples where Israel's instructions and the situation was similar and there was no ethnic cleansing.
Has anyone in this thread said what Hezbollah is doing isn't a war crime? I'd like to think we're all in agreement that firing unguided rockets into civilian areas is unacceptable.
One can believe both parties are committing atrocities, even if the scale is clearly different between them.
a) Rise of alternate forms of organizing trust. People distrust government or other organizations, and turn to alternative forms of organization and trust.
b) Rise of digital wallet/transfer systems that are fundamentally about charging for throughput/withdrawals. The article mentions that banks are restricting withdraws - presumably because banks need deposits to stay liquid. Whish on the other hand doesn't care - it makes money as a % of each transaction.
Hasn't Hawala been a thing in Lebanon for hundreds of years? It doesn't seem like a novel development at all, besides the digital tools. Informal money transfer systems are not new thing challenging the banks at all. The banks are the new thing here.
Hezbollah, Iran and extremely difficult economic situation in Lebanon, meaning there are no social lifts apart from taking Iran’s money and “being part of resistance” facing pretty certain death, plus nasty antisemitic culture and propaganda. These are the reasons Hezbollah attacked Israel and Israel issued evacuation instructions to the civilian population.
BTW the extremely difficult situation is also caused by Hezbollah, Iran and PLO before that.
Since most people won't know: the reason this crisis is developing is because of how hezbollah behaved last time.
These people are Syrian immigrants (largely), pretend to be Shi'a muslims (but aren't), and have moved to Southern Libanon, decades ago, throwing out (and worse) the original (Christian) population, because they were paid to do so. Then in the last war they ran away from the south, to avoid fighting, and they were largely welcomed into Beirut, especially southern Beirut, many taken in by Christians and Sunni (partially because they had money and Lebanon was in a deep crisis). Then a lot of them never left, threw the people who had taken them in out of their own homes. They simply stole the apartments of people who took them in, then chased inhabitants out of entire blocks.
This time, neighbors sometimes literally attack anybody tries to help these people, and chase the refugees away, for fear of a repeat.
The result is, of course, a deep typical middle eastern crisis. Deep misery. Money is deeply involved, corruption is everywhere. Nobody, especially not the people who are now in deep trouble, are innocent. And there is no real solution, nor is anybody interested in providing a solution.
Iran's islamist regime is directly responsible for this crisis, through giving these people money and weapons, but of course they are not available to resolve anything (and that's NOT because the US is attacking them, yes that's a problem, but it's not like they would help anyone if they were doing fine)
Headline really deploying passive voice here. Israel's invasion and wide bombings of Lebanon is what has displaced a million people.
Lebanon had a few million displaced before bombing even started. Many refugees from Syria, it is basically softer version of Gaza.
Syria actually worse than Gaza (5+ million displaced, 200k+ civilians killed) but over a much larger area and timespan.
[flagged]
"Israel's defence minister has said a buffer zone will be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel will keep security control over a swathe of the territory even after the end of the current war against the armed group Hezbollah."
Src》https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yx8knpr5no
"JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - Israel will destroy all homes in Lebanese villages near the border and 600,000 people who fled the south will not be allowed home until northern Israel is secure, the defence minister said on Tuesday, vowing to inflict Gaza-like destruction in the area. Israel Katz reiterated Israeli plans to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, saying that it would maintain control over a swathe of territory up to the Litani River once the war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group ended."
Src》https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-destroy-all...
I wish it wasn't like this but there's no point in not facing reality
[flagged]
The sovereignity of foreign states and there territorial integrity according to international law.
"Under present international law, annexation no longer constitutes a legally admissible mode of acquisition of territory as it violates the prohibition of the threat or use of force (Use of Force, Prohibition of). Therefore annexations must not be recognized as legal."
Src》https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/97801992316...
Put simply: You must not just build a buffer zone on someone elses territory. (You of course can build one on you own as you wish)
Sovereignity isn't infallible, and Israel has a very clear Article 51 argument due to Hezbollah's attacks.
As long as it's temporary (even if the end date isn't clear yet), it's an occupation, not an annexation. Occupations can certainly be legal if necessary for self-defense.
The actual solution would be to enforce UNSC 1701 and disarm Hezbollah. Until that finally happens, Israel has no choice but to respond to cross-border terrorist attacks.
[flagged]
Does Iranian militants mean every local Shiite that Israel is now expelling?
Israel is instructing civilians to leave the areas where there is fighting as is their responsibility under international law. When Hezbollah is disarmed by Lebanon and the war is over they can return.
Do people keep falling for these arguments after all the times it hasn't been the case?
It's been the case in all the previous wars fought in Lebanon.
The question is why do people keep falling for the arguments against Israel when clearly Israel was attacked from Lebanon, is not attacking any neighbor that does not attack it, and is responding just like any other normal country would when it is attacked.
> Israel … is not attacking any neighbor that does not attack it
Incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_attack_on_Doha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_the_Irani...
[flagged]
That's a very nice precedent, any country that has IDF soldiers holidaying as tourists must take note. Go and have your legal combat kill of a idf military combatant.
I think you might be the one falling for propaganda, my friend. Hamas is evil. Hezbollah is evil. Their behavior is indefensible.
Responding by leveling the homes of millions of civilians, holding people in an open air prison. Limiting food, water, and medicine, killing journalists, building an apartheid state, systematically using rape as a means of controlling prisoners, deploying white phosphorus on civilian populations.... these are not just or reasonable responses.
Israel's actions are truly horrifying in scale. The violence aimed at civilians, the systemic abuse of people just trying to survive on subsistence.
I'm not falling for any arguments. I'm simply observing what Israel is doing and saying, "this is truly awful. The scale of misery they are deploying against their enemies is unconscionable."
This time the tone is different in Lebanon. The things they say point to an occupation of the south and that shia are not gonna be welcome back any time soon.
How did that work out for the Palestinians?
Has Hamas disarmed yet?
Your policy is unlimited violence against civilians? You realize how ghoulish that is, right?
I live in Washington DC area, I am cool not to leave?
The Pentagon e.g. would be a legitimate target for Iran and if in their operations against the US they know that your neighborhood is a military target then they can and should warn you and allow you to leave. I doubt that the US military stores rockets in your basement but if they are then that would be a concern. That said if you were in range of Iran's rockets I don't think they'd worry much about e.g. firing cluster munitions on Washington DC like they do on Tel Aviv or Israeli cities.
oh I’m not worried about Iran :)
Just like Gaza right? Oh wait...
Keep on blaming the victims, as if you would have any say the day armed and organized militias would come into your neighborhood to do the same.
The person you are replying to is probably someone who won't understand that the genocide Israel is perpetrating, the settler colonialism, the systemic abuses and torture and rape of prisoners, the invasion are all justified somehow.
Some people cannot take a step back and consider other perspectives, unfortunately.
Edit: see? Their response, "I like it"? This person is deeply troubled and misanthropic.
[flagged]
Israel isn't colonizing Lebanon or abusing and torturing Lebanese. But Lebanon certainly abuses prisoners: https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/06/26/its-part-job/ill-treat...
So by your logic it is fair game to attack Lebanon due to its treatment of prisoners?
Lebanon also commits war crimes by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli population centers.
Why is your rage so selective?
> Israel isn’t … abusing and torturing Lebanese.
Israeli-backed army ran a torture center in south Lebanon for years.
https://www.hrw.org/news/1999/10/27/israel-responsible-abuse...
Given the level of bloodthirst in Israeli society currently, and the accounts of torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody, I’m afraid that something similar is just around the corner for Lebanese as well.
This was from 1999 and it was run by the SLA who were Lebanese. But yes, it was not great and guess what, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000!
But Lebanon and other Arab countries still routines arbitrarily imprison and torture their citizens.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/26/lebanon-enforce-anti-tor...
Have any of these countries poisoned Israel's farms from the air?
I didn't say this was all happening in Lebanon. The West Bank, Gaza, prisons across Israel. And now, an invasion and razing civilian lives in Lebanon.
[flagged]
[flagged]
What motivated hezbolah to form and engage in violence?
[flagged]
the mob flagged a comment stating that thousands of rockets at israeli civilians by hezbollah is what caused the displacement.
https://rocketalert.live/
[flagged]
What exactly was happening before Hezbollah was formed?
[flagged]
It was the incessant attempts by Israel to invade Lebanon and the inaction of the Lebanese government but I guess your answer responds to your underlying allegiances.
Israel invaded Lebanon for the same reason every time - to prevent attacks on civilians from Lebanese territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_Sout...
Because of the constant invasion and denial of recognition of the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinian and after decades of pogroms and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages.
Sounds like you already picked a side. And strangely enough its for a place that you have most likely never been before, and even more puzzling to me, its the side that is the enemy of your culture, which I am assuming you live in USA/Europe/West.
Enemy of my culture? Picked a side? Never been there?
I have eyes and I have a heart capable of empathy. I have a belief that all humans deserve wellbeing, even people I disagree and dislike.
Watching a genocide unfold is clearly antithetical to my beliefs, no matter what the culture of the victims is. Watching a genocide unfold and being against it does not require first hand knowledge of the place. And this conflict is not a team sport -- I can be opposed to Hamas AND opposed to the genocide being perpetrated.
you do not seem to have the heart and empathy for the israelis being attacked and killed by rockets and drones and killed in terrorist attacks and seem to be very certain in information you gathered online and not from direct experience. You definitely picked a side - and blaming one side for all evil, especially in this conflict simply shows just how selective your empathy is, again, especially considering You have no personal stakes. you are demonizing a whole nation under deadly attacks and going to great lengths closing your eyes to the suffering of people you demonize
I think you have not been reading my posts where I unambiguously and repeatedly condemn both Hamas and Hezbollah, and consider firing rockets into civilian areas a war crime.
You seem to believe there's a right side and a wrong side to this conflict. I think there are two wrong sides to this conflict, but the scale and magnitude between the two sides is enormous.
I have empathy for all the non combatants here. I don't have empathy for the groups engaged in killing, displacing, torturing, etc.
How many people died from those terrorist attacks and how many innocent Palestinian children were purposely shot in the head? Whose leaders are currently on national TV proclaiming that their main goal in life is ethnic cleansing?
80% of surveyed Israeli Jews agree even partially with the phrase "there are no innocent civilians in Gaza".
over 5000 israelis and under 10 (or I assume 0) innocent palestinian children purposely shot in the head (but yes, in the history of israel there must have been some psychopaths in the army, hopefully punished).
you realize Teheran has a square with a countdown to complete destruction of Israel and they make people chant death to Israel death to America as part of normal culture?
did you survey personally or did Aljazeera do? Liar
Why do you turn this forum into a house of lies? There is a limitless supply of testimonies of Western journalists dating from decades relaying how the IDF purposely shoots children in the head in Gaza and the West Bank. Haaretz has covered it. MSF has covered it. There are testimonies from all over the world. Every single day we have dozens of incidents of West Bank settlers destroying Palestinian villages and they are being recorded by Jewish Israeli activists. Iranians, believe it or not, have not been in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, unlike Israel which currently destroying literally every single standing building in Gaza and purpusely starving its population, with explicit mentions that Lebanon will follow "the Gaza model".
[flagged]
Is Israel firing into Christian neighborhoods? I think I saw something saying they were not. That seems consistent with Israel’s strikes being intended to target Hezbollah specifically (because Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel at the outset of the military operation in Iran).
> Is Israel firing into Christian neighborhoods?
Yes.
“Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest Fr. Pierre al-Rahi, … was killed in this village in southern Lebanon during an Israeli artillery tank fire on a house March 9, 2026 … al-Rahi had earlier refused, along with other priests, to obey an order by the Israeli military to evacuate the Christian village of Qlayaa”
https://www.ncronline.org/news/lebanese-maronite-catholic-pr...
That's an exception that proves the rule. For the most part Israel is not firing at either Sunni or Christian villages. There is also more to this specific incident so people should research it.
https://www.bpr.org/npr-news/2026-04-03/not-our-war-say-chri...
This article references at least three Christian villages that were recently attacked.
Qlayaa, priest killed by shelling
Debil, dozen homes blown up over past couple of days alone
Alma al-Shaab, where an another priest says his brother was killed in an air strike a couple of days ago.
This article references 4 more:
https://nowlebanon.com/israeli-strikes-on-christian-villages...
“Aitou (is) the latest in a series of strikes on Christian-majority villages. Ehmej, Mayrouba, and Qatarba have been other recent targets”
That’s a total of 7 that I found in like 5 minutes of Kagi search of English language news.
Thanks. It seems a bit more complicated than I’d assumed. I probably should spend more time researching these things. I’d seen a BBC prince on the Christian section of Tyre and extrapolated. I had previously heard about the priest. I think these was one in Gaza as well. Such terrible, bloody times these are.
Israel fired on, and killed, UN peace keepers. Multiple times.
I think they are hardly disciplined here.
Seriously, this again. In the middle of Hezbollah controlled territory there were firefights with UN peacekeepers ... and of course the people who did this "were IDF soldiers". Of course ... that's the explanation.
Does anyone still believe this? I mean, even if it's technically true, it is very well known Hezbollah sneaks as close as they can to UN bases, and then fires rockets at Israeli civilians from there, intentionally. And yes, I'm sure that this creates more than a bit of tension.
But even if that did result in a firefight ... it's not Israel that's responsible. Nobody seriously believes that.
"Technically true".... it's pretty clear that Israel has, on multiple occasions, fired at UN peacekeeping bases. This is not like "Heat of the moment" failures. These are established sites with UN peacekeepers who had been there for some time.
"Oops, our tanks opened fire on UN forces." Is a weird defense of it keeps happening. Once, maybe, but a healthy military would learn to stop that in the future. Mistakes happen. Repeated mistakes seem like a strategy.
Interesting, based on your comment Hezbollah did that from Lebanese territories for no reason.
"Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli forces have also launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/5/at-least-14-people-k...
> Israel's self defense actions
> this is a war crime
Wow-wow just stop that bs. Without israel that region would be much safer.
Last I checked Lebanon was a separate country. So Lebanon decided to join the war against the US and Israel and now the consequences of that are Israel's fault?
Wow-wow just stop that bs. Without Israel people in the region would be murdering each other just like they did in Syria, in the Iran-Iraq war, in Yemen, in Lebanon's civil war etc. Maybe if those countries stopped attacking Israel they wouldn't be in war Mr. warmonger.
EDIT: It's worth mentioning that an attack on another country is not a legal reason according to international law to attack a third country. The critics of Israel and the US are claiming those started an "illegal war" on Iran so by that same rationale Lebanon started an illegal war on Israel.
> Maybe if those countries stopped attacking Israel they wouldn't be in war Mr. warmonger.
Maybe if Israel stopped violently expropriating Arab lands, and assaulting and raping Arabs without consequences. It’s really not that complicated.
This is nonsense and you know it.
> Israel stopped violently expropriating Arab lands
This is objectively happening in the West Bank and Gaza.
> assaulting and raping Arabs without consequences.
This is also objectively happening. A group of IDF soldiers were filmed raping a man to death. Their punishment? Literally nothing. They are cheered by some.
You cannot possibly believe that these sorts of behaviors are helping calm things.
> raping a man to death
That's not true, he's alive and was released to Gaza in a hostage-for-prisoner exchange.
> Their punishment? Literally nothing.
It's probably hard to win a case without the victim to testify. The video is something, but far too low-quality to prove who did what beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors can't ignore evidentiary standards and don't like to lose cases.
At least they were detained and investigated. Can you say the same of the individuals who paraded their rape victims around the streets of Gaza?
Apologies. I did conflate two instances of rape. There are so many, it's possible that I combined two - one where the victim had a ruptured bowel, lung damage, broken ribs, and a torn anus; and another that lead to a death.
That said, when Ben-Gvir says any action is justifiable, including rape, in defense of Israel and when the person who leaked the video gets arrested and when a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute finds the majority of Israelis support not investigating claims of rape it's very difficult for me to be credulous towards the idea that these are just a couple bad apples.
> raping a man to death That's not true, he's alive and was released to Gaza in a hostage-for-prisoner exchange.
Yes, he was merely hospitalized with life-threatening internal bleeding.
However there is at least one case of a death by rape, maybe he got confused?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/dying-in-hell-pale...
There are so many instances of sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli security forces and settlers, it’s hard to keep track.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240317080119/https://news.un.o...
https://www.972mag.com/sde-teiman-prisoners-lawyer-mahajneh/...
https://youtu.be/2WKeKZ6Csro
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/18/middleeast/west-bank-resi...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-settlers-alleged-to-bind-s...
> rape victims around the streets of Gaza
Most Gazans don’t believe Hamas raped anyone. It’s disingenuous to claim they were celebrating rape. Can you please share any public, non-anonymous accounts from Oct 7th either rape victims or witnesses?
Conversely, Israeli politicians and protestors have explicitly agitate for the right to rape detainees.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-idf-palestinia...
I'm not sure what the point is of piling on different accusations. Only one has any evidence, but let's just imagine for the sake of argument that they're all true. Then Israel has at least several criminals, just like every other country on the planet.
Is the idea that it's okay to post misinformation about Israelis because Israelis are bad? If I can identify several Canadian criminals, then since we've established that Canadians are bad people, is it fine to post misinformation about other Canadians?
To reassert the lost context, here is the original claim and counter-claim:
>>> Maybe if Israel stopped violently expropriating Arab lands, and assaulting and raping Arabs without consequences. It’s really not that complicated.
>> This is nonsense and you know it.
It’s apparent from the copious evidence presented here (with which you do not engage) that the original claim was, in fact, not nonsense. A real counter-argument would show 1) that these events did not occur or 2) that there were consequences for the assailants.
> Then Israel has at least several criminals, just like every other country on the planet.
Irrelevant false balance on a literally global scale. May I use this example in the logic text I’ve been workshopping?
The nonsense is the application of impossible standards like "Israel should have zero criminals" or "Israel should have a successful conviction for every suspected crime, never mind evidentiary standards".
If someone wants to make a serious argument about a systematic problem in Israel, that requires data, not a few accusations. For example, at least 10 of 110 released hostages were reportedly sexually assaulted in Hamas captivity [1], and there were zero arrests for it.
If Gazan detainees in Israeli custody experienced SA at the same rate, that would be over a thousand cases of SA. The parent also broadened their search to include SA allegations against Israelis in the West Bank, so they would need to show ~300k cases just to argue equivalence.
If we were to accept all the parent's sources as reliable, that's 12 reported cases of SA. They're 0.004% of the way there.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/sexual-assault-hamas-oct-7-attack...
And they are also using humans as shield? Is it only the enemies of Israel that use human shields or do criminals/terrorists in Israel (if there is such a thing) or any other country do that too?
I'm not sure how we got to the human shield conversation but Hezbollah is firing from within civilian areas if that's the question: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-891166
As to what's common between Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran in the way they treat their civilians I will leave that as an exercise to the reader.
> The displacement is due to Israel's warning to civilians to leave the area of fighting for their protection
Most modern instances of ethnic cleansing are justified as military necessities.
E.g.: Armenian genocide
“Article 1—During war time, army and corp commanders and their deputies and commanders of fortified posts are obliged to destroy any assault or resistance and violently restore order with military forces in the case of opposition, armed attacks or resistance directed against the government orders, the defense of homeland and the preservation of public order.
Article 2—Army, independent corp and division commanders are allowed to transfer and relocate the village and town population in matters related to the military affair or if they feel there is an activity of espionage and treason.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Law_of_Deportation
You can't have it both ways though. If Israel fires back at Hezbollah and civilians are killed then it is committing war crimes and if it asks the civilians to leave then it is committing war crimes. In previous wars in Lebanon civilians were asked to leave and then eventually returned and so there are numerous similar examples where Israel's instructions and the situation was similar and there was no ethnic cleansing.
Has anyone in this thread said what Hezbollah is doing isn't a war crime? I'd like to think we're all in agreement that firing unguided rockets into civilian areas is unacceptable.
One can believe both parties are committing atrocities, even if the scale is clearly different between them.
Seems there are two parallel developments here:
a) Rise of alternate forms of organizing trust. People distrust government or other organizations, and turn to alternative forms of organization and trust.
b) Rise of digital wallet/transfer systems that are fundamentally about charging for throughput/withdrawals. The article mentions that banks are restricting withdraws - presumably because banks need deposits to stay liquid. Whish on the other hand doesn't care - it makes money as a % of each transaction.
Hasn't Hawala been a thing in Lebanon for hundreds of years? It doesn't seem like a novel development at all, besides the digital tools. Informal money transfer systems are not new thing challenging the banks at all. The banks are the new thing here.
Damn I wonder why they are displaced. No one to blame for sure.
Hezbollah, Iran and extremely difficult economic situation in Lebanon, meaning there are no social lifts apart from taking Iran’s money and “being part of resistance” facing pretty certain death, plus nasty antisemitic culture and propaganda. These are the reasons Hezbollah attacked Israel and Israel issued evacuation instructions to the civilian population.
BTW the extremely difficult situation is also caused by Hezbollah, Iran and PLO before that.
[flagged]
Since most people won't know: the reason this crisis is developing is because of how hezbollah behaved last time.
These people are Syrian immigrants (largely), pretend to be Shi'a muslims (but aren't), and have moved to Southern Libanon, decades ago, throwing out (and worse) the original (Christian) population, because they were paid to do so. Then in the last war they ran away from the south, to avoid fighting, and they were largely welcomed into Beirut, especially southern Beirut, many taken in by Christians and Sunni (partially because they had money and Lebanon was in a deep crisis). Then a lot of them never left, threw the people who had taken them in out of their own homes. They simply stole the apartments of people who took them in, then chased inhabitants out of entire blocks.
This time, neighbors sometimes literally attack anybody tries to help these people, and chase the refugees away, for fear of a repeat.
The result is, of course, a deep typical middle eastern crisis. Deep misery. Money is deeply involved, corruption is everywhere. Nobody, especially not the people who are now in deep trouble, are innocent. And there is no real solution, nor is anybody interested in providing a solution.
Iran's islamist regime is directly responsible for this crisis, through giving these people money and weapons, but of course they are not available to resolve anything (and that's NOT because the US is attacking them, yes that's a problem, but it's not like they would help anyone if they were doing fine)