While the diplomatic and military danse macabre between the U.S. and Iran dominates the news on the current Middle East war, Lebanon’s civilian communities are experiencing significant death and destruction.
When it decided to launch missiles into Israel in support of Iran, Lebanese-based Hezbollah recklessly and without concern for consequences, opened a door for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet colleagues.
The far-right Israeli coalition has long harboured ambitions to permanently occupy southern Lebanon and turn the rest of the country into something of a client state.
Now they are acting on that ambition – one that dovetails neatly with U.S. president Trump’s imperialist ambitions in the region.
The Lebanese people, who merely want to live peaceful lives and seek to dominate nobody, are caught, literally, in the crossfire.
In pursuit of his ambitions in Lebanon, Netanyahu has ratcheted up the ruthlessness meter to its highest degree.
The British-based charity Oxfam reports that Netanyahu’s troops are employing a level of brutality that goes way beyond what would be reasonable and necessary to contain Hezbollah.
There is strong evidence that the current regime in Israel is seeking to destroy Lebanon’s water infrastructure, a tactic it used with devastating effect in Gaza.
In a report published on March 24 Oxfam points out:
“The Geneva conventions prohibit attacks on water installations and other objects that are critical for people to survive. Using deprivation of water as a method of warfare is outlawed. Any intentional deprivation of water or obstruction of aid may constitute a war crime.”
Heedless of those rules of war. Netanyahu’s forces have engaged in a systematic effort to deprive ordinary Lebanese citizens’ access to one of life’s basic requirements, water.
“In a span of four days in the first weeks of the latest escalation,” Oxfam reports, “Israel damaged at least seven critical water sources including reservoirs, pipe networks and pumping stations that supplied water to almost than 7,000 people in the Bekaa area alone.”
In Southern Lebanon, where Netanyahu’s army has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens to flee their homes, Oxfam and its partners have been trying to do rehabilitation work at 19 important water facilities.
60,000 people depend on those facilities for clean water.
Oxfam reports that “… due to the intensity of the attacks in these areas, our teams cannot now safely access these sites to assess whether they too are now destroyed or damaged.”
Nor can Oxfam ensure those vital sources of water are functioning properly.
The result?
“Long term impacts will also be devastating for communities if they don’t have clean water when they are able to return home.”
Breaking international law with impunity
Netanyahu’s armed forces are not stopping at water. They have also “destroyed electricity networks and bridges, cutting off vital supplies and services for entire towns and villages.”
According to Oxfam’s country director in Lebanon, Netanyahu’s army has been “attacking civilians, critical civilian infrastructure, emergency services personnel – including 12 medics killed in a single strike – and aid workers.”
Oxfam says the Israeli aim appears to be to “maximize disruption and fear among the population, while ignoring international law.”
This Oxfam official fears a repetition in Lebanon of the destruction that occurred in Gaza.
In that case, the Oxfam official says, the international community stood by in Gaza and “watched Israel’s weaponization of water and its catastrophic consequences to men, women and children there.”
Oxfam urges the countries of the world to do something so that the same devastation wrought in Gaza does not play out again in Lebanon.
Israel must be held to account for its violations, Oxfam says, and “must not be allowed to occupy more land, deny more civilians of their basic rights, and continue to ignore international law without consequence.”
Canada fancies itself to be a member in good standing of the world community.
Further, if Prime Minister Mark Carney meant what he said at Davos, this country seeks to play a leadership role among middle power nations.
In addition, Canada is home to a large Lebanese diaspora population. There are between 200,000 and 400,000 Lebanese Canadians, and there are 45,000 Canadians in Lebanon.
There are many good reasons for which Canada might seek to raise its voice in an effort to reign in the out-of-control Netanyahu war machine.
