People in Gaza hoped that an expansion of the Lebanese front would ease pressure on Gaza. Instead, Israel has escalated its massacres while global attention is elsewhere. They still hope the resistance in Lebanon will make Israel pay
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union
Cross-posted from Mondoweiss
Banner raised in the southern Beirut Dahiya neighborhod in the wake of Israeli attacks reading “We will not abandon Palestine.” (Photo: Social Media)
A day after the start of the genocide in Gaza on October 7 of last year, the first Arab front of solidarity aimed at ending the genocide was formed in Lebanon, and Hezbollah announced that it would fight Israel from the north until the war on Gaza ended. For an entire year, the resistance in Lebanon never let up in maintaining its “support front,” as its Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah called it.
The reaction of the Palestinians of Gaza to Hezbollah’s intention to continue fighting alongside the Palestinians was hopeful. They believed that increased military pressure on Israel from the north would force it to divide up its forces and lessen the pressure on Gaza. But contrary to this belief, expanding the war in Lebanon has now been met with an expansion of the pace of massacres in Gaza as well.
Now Israel’s conduct in Lebanon is repeating a pattern that all Gazans recognize. The Israeli army intensified its military strikes in southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut, sending evacuation orders to Lebanese residents in the south as close to 500 people were killed in a single day.
The parallels with last year’s horrors were not lost on Palestinians in Gaza as they observed the evacuation orders. On social media platforms, Gazans wrote that Lebanon and Gaza were now facing the same enemy and bleeding the same blood.
“What is happening in Lebanon is what is happening in Gaza,” says Khaled Salama, 33, from a tent encampment in Khan Younis. “Genocide and forced displacement are taking place in Gaza and Lebanon. The Zionists want to annihilate all Palestinians, as well as those who stand with them and support them.”
Expanding the genocide
Many in Gaza are now convinced that Israel wants to expand the circle of genocide to include non-Palestinians. Since the news began to come in from Lebanon, accompanied by the familiar scenes of bombing, displacement, and large numbers of people martyred in a single day, Gazans confirmed what they already knew: that Israel wants nothing but destruction, death, and genocide for everyone around it.
“We saw how ambulances were bombed in Lebanon, how entire families were killed in a single raid, and we saw the screams from the rubble. We lived all of this before it happened in Lebanon, so we are the ones who know best what Lebanon is going through now,” Khaled tells Mondoweiss.
“Israel’s excuse for destroying the Gaza Strip was the October 7 attack,” Khaled continues. “What is Israel’s excuse for destroying Lebanon now? Israel is now more certain than ever that no one will hold it accountable, so the pace of its crimes is increasing day by day.”
But while the images of destruction and death are the same, Gazans expect that the resistance in Lebanon will not make for an easy opponent for Israel.
“The resistance in Lebanon is not like the resistance in Gaza,” Khaled explains. “Israel will pay a heavy price for expanding its operations in Lebanon.”
The geographical nature of the Gaza Strip is different than that of Lebanon. The Gaza Strip has flat and uncomplicated coastal terrain that is difficult to defend, while Lebanon is a mountainous area more suitable for fighting and guerilla hit-and-run tactics. The Gaza Strip has been entirely besieged for almost two decades, while Lebanon has open borders with neighboring countries and active supply lives. This gives Palestinians in Gaza hope, who see that the resistance in Lebanon possesses means, defenses, and heavy weapons that the resistance in Gaza did not have.
“Israel will face fierce resistance in Lebanon, and the results will not be like what happened in the Gaza Strip,” Alaa Rabah, 44, says from a displacement camp in al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip. “Hezbollah possesses weapons capable of causing great destruction and losses to Israel; I do not think that Israel will be able to confront the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon at the same time.”
But despite this optimism, one hope has already been dashed for Gazans: that an escalating Lebanese front would change the situation for the people in Gaza. The reality is far less straightforward.
The belief of the people in the Gaza Strip that expanding the war in Lebanon would lead to the easing of pressure on Gaza has so far been misplaced. The severity of the massacres, bombings, and destruction in Gaza has only increased since Israel’s bombardment in Lebanon ramped up. In fact, Israel took advantage of the media’s preoccupation with what was happening in Lebanon to escalate its genocide, targeting several tent encampments and school shelters and leveling residential blocks before then firing on first responders who attempted to rescue survivors
Abdul Karim Aliwa, 22, admits that the war on Lebanon will not ease Gaza’s suffering.
“Israel has supplies of American weapons, and we know that Israel is not fighting alone,” he tells Mondoweiss. “The entire West is complicit in committing massacres against the Palestinians and the Lebanese by supporting Israel and supplying it with the weapons necessary to kill children.”
But the flip side of that statement is also true; if the war on Gaza does not end, it will set a worrying precedent for the rest of the world and the entire international rules-based order. Genocide will become an acceptable method of waging asymmetric warfare.
People in Gaza are already sensing this. “What will make Israel ease the severity of the war in Gaza?” Abdul Karim wonders, sharing that if no one stops Israel in its tracks, it will continue on its genocidal path.
“Today, it’s in Gaza and Lebanon,” he says. “But it won’t stop there.”
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