Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
On June 5, the eve of the Muslim Al Adha holiday, Israel carried out the largest air attack on Beirut since the November 27 ceasefire.
All the Arab news channels carried live coverage of the repeated attacks on the southern residential section of Beirut, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians. Men, women and children were scrambling to leave the area as the devastating attacks sent mushroom-clouds into the evening sky.
Commercial planes were easily seen in the live coverage coming in to land at Rafik Hariri International airport. Every few minutes, another plane would come into sight on the TV screen as viewers were alarmed they might see a stray Israeli airstrike take out a passenger jet, carrying hundreds of people. The pilots and crew must have been alarmed to have to land in a war-zone instead of a holiday destination.
Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has vowed to continuing the bombing until Israel's security if assured.
Israel issued a forced evacuation order one hour before the attacks. They claimed, without evidence, that they were going to strike Hezbollah "drone factories" in south Beirut.
The Lebanese army offered to search the buildings under question and report to the de-confliction committee if weapons had been found. Israel carried out the attacks despite the offer to inspect the sites.
Lebanon's National News Agency reported that Israeli fighter jets had carried out about a dozen strikes in the attack, and other media conformed nine buildings were destroyed in the densely populated residential district, with dozens of other buildings damaged.
In late April, Israel carried out an attack which claimed to target Hezbollah's storage of precision missiles. After the attack, Lebanon's government said at least 190 people had died in attacks since the ceasefire, with nearly 500 wounded.
President Joseph Aoun has appealed to the U.S. and France to stop Israel from attacking, as guarantors of the ceasefire. Israel has been documented as violating the ceasefire on a near-daily basis by Lebanon, Arab nations, and human rights groups.
Many experts have said the U.S. is not a neutral party in the ceasefire, because they refuse to stop Israel, which uses weapons sent free-of-charge from the American tax-payer. Recently, the US envoy to Lebanon, Morgan Ortegas, was transferred. Her heavy-handed and undiplomatic attitude was disappointing to important players in Lebanon.
The ceasefire agreement was to see the Lebanese army disarm Hezbollah, thus allowing the influential group to revert to simply a political party. The Israeli war on Lebanon destroyed huge amounts of Hezbollah weapons, killed thousands of Iran-backed resistance fighters, along with hundreds of unarmed and innocent civilians.
"The Israeli enemy violations of the deal and its refusal to respond to the committee is weakening the role of the committee and the army," the Lebanese military said in a statement.
President Joseph Aoun denounced the strikes as a "flagrant violation of international accords," while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called them an assault on Lebanon's sovereignty. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri characterized the attacks as targeting "all Lebanese people" during a sacred holiday.
Lebanon urgently contacted U.S. and French officials-- guarantors of the ceasefire-- demanding they restrain Israel. France publicly condemned the violations.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar urged political factions to convert condemnations into concrete diplomatic action. The group denied operating drone facilities in civilian areas.
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