Lebanon finds itself engulfed in a war imposed on its people and calls for solidarity from the region to support those suffering from this latest Israeli attack. These calls are for humanitarian aid, including medical aid, as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from the south by a wave of Israeli bombing that has killed more than 700 people so far. They need immediate relief.
Civil activists, media figures, and human rights defenders are among those calling for this aid. They insist that now is not the time for politics or blame and that the focus should be on alleviating the humanitarian crisis.
True, Lebanon is facing an unprecedented disaster. Israeli air strikes have been more intense than anything Lebanon experienced—even in the darkest days of its civil war a generation ago. With thousands wounded, the scale of the devastation is impossible to ignore, yet Lebanon was already on its knees, reeling from successive crises, including a collapsed economy and an enormous explosion that obliterated Beirut’s port.
Yet to focus only on this sidesteps an important truth: this war was not unforeseen. Indeed, several parties actively imposed it, worked toward it, and downplayed the risks for the Lebanese people.
Exonerating the culprits
For the past year, Lebanese citizens lived under an illusion—a false sense of security fostered by slogans and phrases like “balance of terror,” “deterrence power,” and “forcing Israel to stand on one and a half legs”. Today, these slogans appear empty at best, if not purposefully misleading.
There are undoubtedly people responsible for this and there is a risk that they will be exonerated amidst arguments that the war was imposed on Lebanon or that social solidarity is now needed.
