Israel is waging war on Lebanon. Why is the world calling it a "ground operation"?

When is a war not a war? When it’s Israel’s war in Lebanon, aka Schrödinger’s War. Because if a war kills 1,500 people and drives 1.2m people from their homes but is called a “limited ground operation” in the international media, does it even exist?

It obviously does: just ask the people of Lebanon. This is a country in turmoil. It’s a tiny Mediterranean country, just half the size of Wales, that was already on the brink of failure following years of war, corruption, Israeli bombardment, waves of refugees, a massive port explosion, the actions of an Iranian proxy and the failure to provide even basic services to its people.

Now, a huge swathe of the south has been occupied by an invading army that’s targeted and killed civilians (a war crime), children (a war crime), medics (a war crime), journalists (a war crime), blown up critical infrastructure including bridges (a war crime), and has seen a fifth of its population made homeless overnight (a war crime). 

However there have been no front pages. No statements from Keir Starmer or most other world leaders. Today is the first day it’s made the main headlines - with 100 devastating strikes across the country. Wasn’t a ceasefire announced last night? 

But then, Israel’s greatest victory to date may be the reality distortion that it’s managed to create around its war on Lebanon, even as it’s killed 1,500 people and laid claim to its land. 

Russia invaded Ukraine. The world’s media is agreed on that. It sent tanks across the border and waged a war of terror on the inhabitants. Israel, on the other hand, has instigated a “ground operation” to create a “security buffer zone” in Lebanon. 

It’s a “security buffer zone” in the same sense that Donetsk and Mariupol in Ukraine are a “security buffer zone”, yet those words have been repeated in news stories in outlets that should know better, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian and the Times. 

All while Israel’s ministers have announced their intention to Gaza-ify southern Lebanon. None of this is secret. Israel Katz, the minister of defence, has said: “All houses in villages near the border in Lebanon will be destroyed - according to the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza - to remove, once and for all, the threats near the border to northern residents.” The finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has said that the war in Lebanon needs to end “with the change of Israel’s borders,” adding that, “the new Israeli border must be the Litani”.

An hour before Trump’s ceasefire announcement last night, Israel launched a missile on a seaside cafe that killed twelve people. Just four hours after the announcement, Netanyahu issued a statement that that does not cover Lebanon. Today, bombing raids have continued across Beirut reportedly hitting 100 targets in 10 minutes. “The largest strikes against Hezbollah”, according to Reuters, recycling the language of the IDF’s own news announcement.

It’s a statement that comes after days of Israeli officials claiming that it’s a “separate conflict”. It’s also a masterful sleight of hand. This is a war that was launched under the cover of chaos, on the pretext of a US-Israel war against Iran, but as these statements, and multiple others have made clear, this isn’t about Iran. 

 The Jerusalem Post has quoted the writings of David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, to justify the state’s actions “that the natural northern border of the Land of Israel is the Litani River in southern Lebanon.” Their op-ed continues: “Think about that. The very founder of the State of Israel understood something that we are painfully relearning today through war and bloodshed: the Litani River is the only defensible northern border for the Jewish state.”

This is the invasion of a sovereign nation state. It’s the illegal capture of Lebanese territory, a re-writing of international borders. And Israel has made it clear that 600,000 displaced people will never be allowed to return until the “safety and security of northern Israeli residents is ensured”, that is, Israel remains as an occupying force. 

Lebanon is a country that I got to know three decades ago, after one of its last convulsive years-long cycles of violence, when I wrote a travel guidebook there. Two days ago, a video came up in my social media feed of the pretty seaside town of Naqoura being blown up. A series of massive simultaneous detonations had apparently levelled the town. 

I found myself cruising Tripadvisor listings of its pretty fancy hotels and charming-looking fish restaurants. They’d all appeared since I’d last been there in 2000.  Naqoura is also the headquarters of the 10,000-strong UN force that’s been in southern Lebanon since 1978. Three UN peacekeepers have already been killed. Disturbing reports say the Israeli army has removed 17 security cameras facing their headquarters. Other disturbing reports claim Israel is ethnically cleansing entire villages and towns in a country that’s survived decades of sectarian violence. 

The New York Times reports the IDF “has called Christian and Druze leaders to force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them”. This is a land, it says, from which Shia Muslims are being targeted and removed. 

Earlier this week, I gave some notes to a young journalist and told him that all stories need a golden thread that takes you from the first paragraph of a story to the last. But there’s nowhere for this story to go. 

The world witnessed what happened in Gaza. It’s happening again now. It’s planned, systematic and is happening in plain sight, while a US president threatens civilisational erasure and what’s left of the international order collapses. It’s Gaza that’s made this possible. It’s both the beginning and the end. Maybe that’s the golden thread after all.