Gideon Levy: “Israel’s Barbaric Glee over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society” | Democracy Now!

"We speak with Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, who says the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday was met with “barbaric glee” by much of Israeli society. “We are getting down and down, lower and lower, believing more and more in only one thing, namely in killing and destructing,” says Levy, who warns that Israel is very likely to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon next and continue expanding the war as long as it enjoys unlimited U.S. support. The ongoing escalation in the region comes after a year of “only bombing and refusing any kind of diplomacy,” Levy says.

Please check back later for full transcript."

Gideon Levy: “Israel’s Barbaric Glee over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society” | Democracy Now!

With Gaza in ruins and Lebanon under siege, what defence remains for Israel’s actions? | Nesrine Malik | The Guardian

With Gaza in ruins and Lebanon under siege, what defence remains for Israel’s actions? | Nesrine Malik

A common defence of Israel’s belligerence, both within the Palestinian territories and in the wider region, is the claim that it must act in this way because it is surrounded by countries that are trying to annihilate it. Like many of the arguments that attempt to justify Israel’s disproportionate response to 7 October, it is not only incorrect but also an inversion of reality. The events of the last few months and the assault on Lebanon over the past few days demonstrate that it is Israel which is a threat to its neighbours.

On last Monday alone, Israeli airstrikes killed 558 people in Lebanon – half the number who died in a whole month of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Among the dead were 50 children, as well as humanitarian workers, first aid responders and government employees. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, says a million people could soon be displaced. The strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday levelled six apartment blocks in Beirut. A Gaza in microcosm is quickly unfolding – thousands fleeing for safety, traumatised children, high casualties, an escalation where there is no limit on the civilian lives that can be sacrificed to achieve Israel’s goals.

Since the start of the conflict in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in a war of signalling military capability and resolve, exchanging missiles and strong rhetoric but never initiating open and unrestrained warfare. That changed with the pager and radio attacks, widely believed to be by Israel, followed by airstrikes that escalated last week. Israel is looking not just for a show of decisive military might and a cowing of Hezbollah, but for the military victory that still eludes it in the quagmire of Gaza. But there is a risk that Hezbollah and Iran, which have so far refrained from a clear-cut declaration of war, will be goaded into a face-saving conflict which neither they or Israel can win outright.

And so here we are again: in a situation where civilians are caught in the middle and Israel justifies their deaths with a defence that – as always – draws on fears of an “existential threat”. But in terms of real and grave threats to regional stability, Israel is the pugnacious out-of-control force, embarking on its recent campaign in Lebanon and the assassination of Nasrallah against the United States’s explicit wishes. Its neighbours and the wider region are reluctant to be drawn into any sort of war with Israel, let alone one in which it is annihilated. Israel’s response to 7 October overturned the status quo – and given the choice, its neighbours would surely turn back the clock.

The Gaza war has endured so long and expanded so much that we no longer see the smaller pictures – only the cliche of “rising tensions” in the Middle East. We no longer see the others killed on its edges, in the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. And we cannot see the contours of individual nations – their challenges and long histories of grappling with both Israel and Palestine, and their own conflicts. Lebanon, a country still scarred by civil war, is being retraumatised; elsewhere Israel’s actions since 7 October have upturned the domestic politics and regional political calibrations of the Arab world and the wider Middle East.

Rather than wishing for Israel’s destruction, many states in the region recently considered the Israel and Palestine question settled or at least sidelined, largely on Israel’s terms. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel more than 40 years ago and bowed out of a conflict it knew it couldn’t win. Jordan relinquished its claim to the West Bank – occupied by Israel since 1967 despite repeated UN calls for it to withdraw from all Palestinian and other Arab territories – in 1988, and made peace in 1994. In the Abraham accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan all agreed to normalise relations with Israel and recognise its status as a sovereign nation or to begin that process. Saudi Arabia’s normalisation of relations and recognition, a significant win for Israel, was on its way before 7 October. The consensus among analysts and insiders I have spoken to is that the Gaza war is not seen by Saudi Arabia as a gamechanger in its relationship with Israel, and that if and when it ends, the Gulf state would still be keen on normalisation.

The Gaza war, and the wider Israel-Palestine issue, is also a test for Arab countries that are negotiating their own challenges and managing domestic discord. It is a distraction and disrupts their relationships with western allies. Egypt is in the throes of an economic crisis and is under the intense pressure to decide about letting in Palestinian refugees, potentially enabling the ethnic cleansing of Gaza in the process. The UAE is already embroiled in a war in Sudan, for which it is drawing intense heat and some damaging international media coverage. Saudi Arabia would very much like to leave all foreign politics behind, having overdosed on it during the time when it projected its power using religious influence and wealth, and get down to the business of building shiny mega cities, buying up sports franchises and cleansing its reputation. Qatar is a staunch US ally and hosts the largest US military facility in the Middle East. Jordan, a resource-poor country with a fragile economy, has received more than a million refugees from Syria in recent years, and is almost entirely dependent on staggering amounts of US aid to remain viable. Syria has remained quietdespite strikes in its territory by Israel. Lebanon is home to what is in effect a Hezbollah state within a state, the latter being one with no president and an economic and political perma-crisis.

And so to the threat to Israel. Why does it continue to cast itself as besieged in a region that has either long been domesticated or has too many of its own problems to care? If the cause of Israel’s belligerence can be externalised, portrayed as a necessary response from a state surrounded by threats because of the simple fact of its existence, then Israel’s own role can be obscured and exculpated.

The source of Israel’s security challenges, the heart of the “rising tensions” in the region, is Israel’s siege on Gaza, what is widely condemned as apartheid in the West Bank, its continuing occupation of territories that it has been ordered by UN security council resolutions to vacate, and its illegal expansion of settlements. As long as these conditions continue, uprisings through both justified and illegitimate means, from intifada to 7 October, will persist. And so will incidents of sharp confrontation, deadly to Palestinians, with Israeli forces and settlers, triggering a cycle of response among states such as Iran and non-state actors such as Hezbollah and the Houthis. A profound threat does exist, but it is to the stability of the Middle East and the wider Arab world, which Israel is increasingly drawing to the brink.

• Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

This article was amended on 30 September 2024 to rephrase reference to Jordan’s previous claims over the West Bank."

With Gaza in ruins and Lebanon under siege, what defence remains for Israel’s actions? | Nesrine Malik | The Guardian

Israel used U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs in Nasrallah strike - The Washington Post

Israel likely used U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs in Nasrallah strike, visuals show

Imogen PiperSeptember 29, 2024 at 10:40 a.m. EDT

"Israel probably employed U.S.-made 2,000-pound munitions in its strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, according to a review of visuals released by the Israel Defense Forces. Analysts who examined videos of the strike and its aftermath at The Washington Post’s request said the damage was consistent with the use of multiple 2,000-pound bombs.

Three analysts who reviewed a video shared by the Israeli air force on Saturday said it showed fighter jets carrying multiple 2,000-pound-class bombs, at least some of which were U.S.-made BLU-109s and JDAM guidance kits.

In the video, eight F-15 planes carrying at least 16 2,000-pound bombs take off. “Air force planes eliminating Hasan Nasrallah and the Hezbollah headquarters in Lebanon,” reads the descriptive text accompanying the video. Photos released by the IDF showed individual planes fitted with at least three and as many as six BLU-109s each.

The warheads are designed to penetrate up to six feet of reinforced concrete, according to Trevor Ball, a former explosive ordnance disposal technician for the U.S. Army.

The attack leveled at least four large buildings in two locations and caused heavy damage to an area spanning 1,000 feet, according to photos, videos and a comparison of satellite imagery from before and after the strike. 

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, referred questions about the operation to the IDF. An IDF spokesperson told The Post that “Dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds with very high precision, and this is part of what is required to hit underground sites at this depth.” They declined to comment further on the strike. U.S. officials have said they received no advance warning from the Israelis about the attack.

“It is a mess of a site,” Ball said of the strike’s aftermath. “It’s possible dozens of 2,000-pound bombs were used,” he added after reviewing new video of a large crater where the two buildings previously stood.

One video, filmed from a window, shows at least four distinct columns rising above the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. The plumes appear to be dozens of feet wide and high, billowing above the buildings below. Screams are audible in the background.

Warplanes then dropped at least five additional munitions, according to a second videoverified by The Post. After they land, a fireball erupts. It was not immediately clear from the video what munition was used.

“Initial available videos of the strike show that numerous large air-delivered bombs were used,” N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, wrote in a message to The Post. Jenzen-Jones added that the repeated impacts from multiple munitions suggests they were aimed at penetrating a heavily protected space.

This kind of quick succession of munitions is often referred to as “daisy chaining,” a Department of Defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss targeting strategy, told The Post. He added that daisy-chaining with 2,000-pound bombs is a common tactic in decapitation strikes: Drop the building with the bunker-buster bombs and then deploy a high-explosive demolition charge.

The technique was used by U.S. and NATO forces in failed strikes against Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi in the early 2000s, according to the official, who was familiar with the execution of both strikes at the time. In both attacks, 2,000-pound bombs were used in the single digits, including two BLU-109s in each. The official said he had never seen so many bombs used against a single target as in the Nasrallah strike.

A video filmed in the immediate aftermath shows at least two craters, both filled with significant amounts of debris. Fire is visible in the background as rescue crews clad in neon yellow vests traverse the landscape of charred building materials in search of survivors.

(Video: Alaaeddine Sukkar)

In May, the Biden administration paused the shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel, including the controversial 2,000-pound bombs, in protest of their use in heavily populated areas in Gaza. Since then, the United States has resumed sending 500-pound munitions.

Israel has killed 1,030 people in Lebanon since mid-September, according Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. There have been 6,352 people wounded, Health Minister Firass Abiad said in a news conference Saturday.

Joe Snell and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report."

Israel used U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs in Nasrallah strike - The Washington Post

An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers - The New York Times

An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers

The lifelong Republican employs fewer Haitians than others in Springfield, but his life has been upended since Donald J. Trump spread falsehoods about immigrants in his hometown.

"An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers

The lifelong Republican employs fewer Haitians than others in Springfield, but his life has been upended since Donald J. Trump spread falsehoods about immigrants in his hometown.

Jamie McGregor stands on a large factory floor.

Jamie McGregor, CEO of McGregor Metal Co., is a lifelong Republican who voted twice for Mr. Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Sept. 30, 2024Updated 9:24 a.m. ET

For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants.

To defend himself and his family, Mr. McGregor has had to violate his own vow to never own a gun.

“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” said Mr. McGregor, who runs McGregor Metal, which makes parts for cars, trucks and tractors.

“And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns,” he said on a recent day, pulling up a photo of his 14-year-old daughter clutching a Glock.

A fifth-generation Springfield resident whose family supports the arts and charities in the small city between Columbus and Dayton, Mr. McGregor prides himself for having among his employees people who were hired by his grandfather when he was a toddler.

When he was struggling a few years ago to fill positions for machine operators, forklift drivers and quality inspectors, Mr. McGregor, 48, began hiring Haitians who had recently settled in Springfield, and they now represent about 10 percent of McGregor Metal’s labor force of 330.

Among them is Wilford Renvil, who has operated a mechanical press since 2021. He fled Haiti, where he had a white-collar job at a telecommunications company, after bandits took control of his town and went on killing sprees. His attendance record at McGregor is perfect, Mr. Renvil said, and he has befriended his American co-workers.

But resentment had been building among some residents of Springfield over the arrival of thousands of Haitians since 2020; the discontent boiled over after an 11-year-old boy was killed last year by a Haitian who rammed his minivan into a school bus. The newcomers have helped revitalize the blue-collar town and reverse its population decline. But they have also strained services and pushed up housing prices, and some residents have packed public meetings to complain that the immigrants are ruining their town.

In a New York Times article in early September, Mr. McGregor praised his Haitian employees, saying: “They come to work every day. They don’t cause drama. They’re on time.” On PBS News Hour the next week, he noted that they were drug-free. “I wish I had 30 more,” he said.

Mr. McGregor said he had felt compelled to speak publicly because the Haitian workers had helped his company to grow and his city to make a comeback. “I wanted to offer an alternative view,” he said.

The debate in Springfield exploded on the national stage when former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, spread false rumors that Haitians were stealing and eating pets.

Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris during their first presidential debate in Philadelphia on Sept. 10.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Mr. Trump repeated the claims during the presidential debate on Sept. 10, and as more people read Mr. McGregor’s earlier comments commending his immigrant workers, a flood of threats to him, his family and his business followed.

They came by the hundreds — phone calls, emails and letters from white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other people they had never met.

“The owner of McGregor Metal can take a bullet to the skull and that would be 100 percent justified,” said one message left on the company voice mail.

“Why are you importing Third World savages who eat animals and giving them jobs over United States citizens?” another asked.

“Stack all 20,000 Haitians inside Jamie McGregor’s factory at once and force him to praise the benefits of foreign labor while being crushed to death by Black bodies themselves being crushed to death,” another said.

They didn’t stop at the company. Mr. McGregor’s children and his 80-year-old mother began receiving hateful calls.

“We’re being hunted like animals,” Mr. McGregor’s wife, Cameron, said.

McGregor Metal employs fewer Haitians than companies like Dole; Topre, another auto parts maker; and several others in the region. But executives of those companies have refrained from issuing public statements, even as Springfield has descended into a crisis, with bomb threats shuttering schools, colleges and government offices for days.

A lifelong Republican who voted twice for Mr. Trump, Mr. McGregor said that he had never imagined that speaking up on behalf of his workers would imperil his family.

He also faced blowback from American workers at his company who said they felt maligned by his comments, some of which implied that Haitians were more reliable than other employees.

Mr. McGregor called emergency meetings at all three facilities.

“If you found what I said to be offensive, or if you took my comments personally, I’m deeply sorry, as it was never my intent,” Mr. McGregor recalled telling his employees during the emotionally charged meetings.

He explained that the Haitians he had hired were in the country legally and paying taxes, contrary to claims on social media that McGregor Metal paid them lower wages under the table.

“We have different opinions and beliefs, but we’re here to make metal parts,” he told the staff. “We’re not here to debate immigration.”

F.B.I. agents showed up at McGregor Metal out of the blue on Sept. 12.

They warned him that they had determined that some of the threats on social media were credible and that he must take precautions.

They advised locking the lobby doors at McGregor Metal along with other safety protocols.

Security experts also sat the family down. Vary your driving routes to work, school and other places, they advised. Don gloves and use tongs when handling and opening mail. Keep the blinds drawn at your house.

The family was also advised to scrub their digital footprints, install cameras, motion sensors and alarms, and start parking rear-first in the garage, keeping the car in drive until the door is all the way down.

McGregor Metal Co. had to update its safety protocols in response to the threats.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

The hardest recommendation of all for Mr. McGregor was their advice to buy a gun. More than one, in fact.

He said he had always supported people’s right to own firearms. But “I’m not a gun person,” he said, breathing deeply. “I do not like guns. I never liked guns.”

He felt heartbroken when he had to pull his daughter out of school for shooting lessons.

“It was a complete loss of innocence,” he said.

As the family tried to adjust to their new reality, ominous posters of Mr. McGregor popped up near his plants, outside a grocery store and on poles.

They featured quotes from Mr. McGregor praising his immigrant workers, and the word “traitor” scrawled on his forehead in red capital letters.

Last week, Springfield experienced its first relatively normal week since the claims about Haitians and pets derailed the city’s routines and created chaos. All 17 schools opened without new bomb threats, although state paratroopers still swept the buildings beforehand.

On Tuesday night, the city held an in-person commission meeting — the first since the bomb threats. Attendees had to pass through metal detectors.

During the public comment period, some angry residents aired grievances about Haitians, as they had done in the past. But the gathering was not as heated as previous ones, and several people voiced support for the immigrants and encouraged community unity.

Threats against the McGregor family and his company have abated in recent days.

But they cannot rest easy.

“You know, things are just different now,” Mr. McGregor said.

“Here at the shop, you know, on a warm day, we would normally have all of our doors and windows open and the breeze blowing,” he said.

On a recent evening, when Mr. McGregor arrived home feeling unwell, his family worried that he had been exposed to a biological agent such as anthrax after handling mail.

Mr. McGregor said he was more likely just suffering from the accumulation of stress, but that did not relieve his wife’s anxiety.

“I can’t imagine living my whole life like this,” Ms. McGregor said. “You know, it’s got to end. It’s got to stop — hopefully after the election.’’

Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States. More about Miriam Jordan

See more on: 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis"

An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers - The New York Times

Israel Making Raids in Lebanon to Set Up Possible Invasion, Officials Say: Live Updates - The New York Times

Live Updates: Israel Making Raids in Lebanon to Set Up Possible Invasion, Officials Say

"Military officials said no decision had yet been made about whether or when to launch a major ground operation targeting Hezbollah. An Israeli airstrike killed a Hamas leader in Lebanon, extending a string of attacks against Iranian-backed militias.

Updated 

Sept. 30, 2024, 10:01 a.m. ET

1. 

   A residential area following an overnight blast in Beirut, Lebanon, on Monday.

   David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

2. A damaged apartment block hit by the blast in Beirut.

   David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

3. A Beirut barbershop showing a speech by Sheikh Naim Qassem of Hezbollah.

   Bilal Hussein/Associated Press

4. The site of a strike in Ain el-Deib, near Sidon, Lebanon.

   Aziz Taher/Reuters

5. Rescuing a survivor of an Israeli strike in Sidon.

   The Associated Press

6. Demonstrators in Jerusalem called for a deal to release hostages held by Hamas.

   Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

7. Israeli military vehicles near the border with Lebanon.

   Reuters

8. Some families sought refuge at the beach after fleeing Beirut's southern suburbs, on Sunday.

   Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

9. A billboard in Tehran, Iran, featuring Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader killed on Friday. 

   Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

10. Destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

    Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock

Pinned

Israeli commando units have made brief incursions into Lebanese territory in recent days to prepare for a possible wider invasion targeting Hezbollah, although no decision has yet been made about whether or when to begin one, officials said.

The raids — confirmed by six Israeli officers and officials, and one Western official — have focused on gathering intelligence about Hezbollah positions close to Israel’s northern border, as well as on identifying Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure in preparation to attack them from the air or the ground.

Sept. 30, 2024, 9:41 a.m. ET

Matthew Cassel

Videojournalist reporting from Lebanon

People streaming through Beirut’s bustling Cola Junction stared in disbelief at a damaged apartment building that was struck by Israel overnight. It was the first known Israeli strike in the center of the Lebanese capital in nearly two decades. Mohamed al-Hoss, a resident of the predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood, said that even during the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the area had been spared. “We’re in shock — we’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said.

Sept. 30, 2024, 9:38 a.m. ET

Johnatan Reiss

Reporting from Tel Aviv

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, released an English-language videoaddressing the Iranian public, saying, “The people of Iran should know — Israel stands with you.” He reiterated his threats against Iran, saying, “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”

Israel Attacks on Multiple Fronts on Sunday

Israel said it had struck dozens of

targets in Lebanon on Sunday.

On Friday, an Israeli strike killed

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader.

Iran backs Hezbollah in Lebanon,

the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas

in Gaza.

Israel continues to

fight Hamas in Gaza.

Israel struck power plants

and a seaport that it said were used to 

transfer weapons from Iran.

The overnight strike in the Cola neighborhood in Beirut appeared to have been the first known Israeli strike in the city center since 2006. Israel has struck the densely populated Dahiya area to the south many times recently, with most of those strikes coming after a massive bombing attack on Friday that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah there.

Israel struck the Dahiya on Jan. 2 for the first time since the war in Gaza began last October, targeting a Hamas official. It struck one other time before September, killing the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr on July 30.

Along with Mr. Shukr, Israel killed two other members of Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, in the area: Ibrahim Aqeel and Ali Karaki, who was killed alongside Nasrallah.

The strike on Mr. Aqeel killed at least 45 people, according to Lebanese authorities, including three children.

Strike in Beirut’s Cola neighborhood

The strike appeared to be Israel’s first in central Beirut since 2006."

Israel Making Raids in Lebanon to Set Up Possible Invasion, Officials Say: Live Updates - The New York Times

Republicans get hit with SURPRISE bad news in Georgia

Report from Beirut: Israel Is “Targeting Everyone” in Bombing Campaign, Killing 700+ in Just Days

 

Report from Beirut: Israel Is 

“Targeting Everyone” in Bombing Campaign, Killing 700+ in Just Days

We get an update from Lebanon, where the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has risen to over 700 since Monday, following a series of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week. The Israeli military reiterated its troops were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Multiple Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have appeared across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. As the Biden administration claims it’s working toward a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel is set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totaling some $8.7 billion. “People are really scared,” says Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut. “Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, it’s targeting everyone.” Fawaz discusses the context for Lebanon’s crisis, organizing to shelter and survive the bombing, and the Israeli messaging about evacuation orders and Hezbollah.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We go now to Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have already killed at least 25 people today, including a family of nine in the border town of Shebaa, bringing the death toll to over 700 since Israel began its indiscriminate bombing on Monday. Israel’s strikes follow a series of explosions involving booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week that killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,500.

In an apparent flip-flop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative for a temporary ceasefire, which has also been backed by France, by Canada, by Saudi Arabia, by UAE, by the European Union and others. This comes after Netanyahu had publicly rejected the ceasefire proposal and vowed Israel will carry on, with “full force,” attacks on Lebanon. Netanyahu spoke Thursday as he landed here in New York, where he’s scheduled to address leaders of the U.N. General Assembly.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] My policy, our policy, is clear: We are continuing to hit Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we achieve our goals — first and foremost, returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.

AMY GOODMAN: Netanyahu’s remarks came as the Israeli military reiterated its troops are preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Earlier today, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles were seen crossing Israel’s northern border into Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Lebanese officials say the number of displaced people fleeing Israel’s attacks has likely surpassed a quarter of a million, with tens of thousands sheltering in evacuation centers, in schools that have been closed in Beirut and across Lebanon.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday, the Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib urged all parties to agree to a ceasefire, as he said the worsening violence threatens Lebanon’s very existence. He said a U.S.-, France-led proposal for that temporary truce was an opportunity to generate momentum to take steps toward ending the crisis.

ABDALLAH BOU HABIB: [translated] Lebanon is living through a crisis that threatens its very existence. The future of our people and our prosperity are in peril, and this is a situation that requires international intervention on an urgent basis before the situation spirals out of control with a domino effect, making the crisis impossible to contain. It will be impossible to extinguish the flame of this crisis, which will transform into a black hole that will engulf regional, international peace and security. The crisis in Lebanon threatens the entire Middle East if the situation remains as it currently is and if the world remains immobile.

AMY GOODMAN: As the Biden administration claims it backs a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel says it’s set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totaling some $8.7 billion.

For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at American University of Beirut. She’s also an activist.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what’s happening on the ground, with tens of thousands of people taking shelter in schools and other places, a quarter of a million people displaced? You yourself are involved with helping to house people. What’s happening?

MONA FAWAZ: Hi, Amy. And thanks for covering all of this.

So, really, everyone here in Beirut is under — actually, in Lebanon, is under extreme duress. Since Monday, we’ve had more than, the Ministry of Health just announced, 747 deaths. That is in three days, actually — more than half the people killed back in 2006 during the entire war. That means that people fled the south really very, very quickly, and the Beqaa. And so, the normal trickle down is instead huge flows of people who are traveling across stranded roads, spending hours and hours on trips that normally would just take 45 minutes.

And, of course, people are fleeing because they’ve just been watching for a whole year a genocide unfold in Gaza, and they’ve been hearing members of the Israeli political class and the generals repeating over and over again that they’re turning Beirut into another Gaza. So that means that people are really scared. And Israel is pounding the south and the Beqaa with one raid after another. And they’re also deploying all sorts of tactics to scare people, throwing leaflets, taking over the public phone station to robot call people and issue calls telling everyone to evacuate our classrooms, our homes. Everyone was getting these calls on Monday and Tuesday.

So, it’s really a lot of stress that you have to deal with, in the background of a country that for the last 11 years have suffered one shock after the other. So, that population, one in five of whom is actually still a Syrian refugee, has also lost 80% — 80% of its population is below the poverty line since we went bankrupt in 2019. We haven’t had a president since 20— for two years now, actually. So, there is a — we have had to basically try and help each other in a context which is really very severe.

And as you pointed out, the schools are closed. Our kids are home, because the schools are being used in shelter. One in two schools in Beirut is actually a shelter right now, and more than 40% of all the public schools in Lebanon have been turned into shelter.

And it’s getting closer and closer to us. I mean, Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, I mean, it’s targeting everyone. It’s touching everyone. Just yesterday, there was an attack in Beirut, and it wounded one of my architecture students, a fourth-year architecture student at the American University of Beirut. So, I mean, these are not fighters; these are civilians. She just lived on the wrong street, because Israel decided to do that. Last Monday’s attack killed about 50 people.

I mean, I guess I’m just trying to show the extent to which people are trying to get involved, make a difference, help each other, but really in a very, very difficult context. And, yes, of course, most of the people I know are actually involved in trying to help people. So, most of us are sheltering family members or friends or people we know in our own homes. We also are fundraising for the Civil Defense, because Israel has been actually targeting ambulances, claiming that the wounded are fighters, but that means that the Civil Defense, which is basically the first responders, are losing their lives and their ambulances. And so we’re trying to fundraise for them. We’re trying to fundraise for medications. And because I work in a lab that normally would do a lot of urban visualization on housing and rent, we’re actually really mapping the violence, and then also all the schools, and trying to coordinate the action of solidarity by showing where the schools are, who can take aid where, so as, basically, the university can play that role of coordination and support for solidarity movements.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel says it’s warned tens of thousands of people — I think even the information minister of Lebanon — to move, they say, anyone who’s living near a Hezbollah facility or where weapons are stored. How do people know this, Professor Fawaz?

MONA FAWAZ: Of course, people cannot know where Hezbollah has weapons. And, of course, Israel can claim anything it wants. In fact, they’ve been sending bombs in all sorts of neighborhoods and areas of the country where it’s very unlikely that Hezbollah has any weapons. And the point is to basically set people against the party and to basically make it seem as if the war is just the result of Hezbollah’s belligerence.

In practice, there has been ridiculous videos showing people hiding weapons under their mattresses. It’s actually really condescending picture — cartoons oriented towards the Lebanese people, telling them, “Hey, you know the person who hid the bomb under your sofa? Can you — do you remember that guy? He was a Hezbollah.” This is ridiculous. I mean, people don’t know, and that is actually increasing the fear.

And it’s basically meant to be divisive, because the Lebanese society, at the base, is already quite divided on many issues, and also to put people into — under more duress, to just say, “OK, we surrender. You can do whatever you want.” No one can ever say no to mighty Israel and its sponsors.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you’re a professor of urban planning. Can you explain the scale of the destruction in Lebanon due to Israel’s attacks right now? You’re documenting the frequency of the attacks, the demolition of infrastructure. We just have a minute.

MONA FAWAZ: Well, since last October, we have been documenting the strikes on daily basis and showing where they go and how. And our evidence is very clear. It shows that Israel has hit Lebanon, until last week, four times more often and way more, way deeper. In the last week, of course, the numbers have gone up the roof, and it is impossible to count how much of the demolition has actually happened. So we are working to geo-sat that, because, as in previous wars, we will have to support the effort of reconstruction. But some of the villages on the edges of Lebanon are basically fully flattened.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Mona Fawaz. Please stay safe, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut.

Next up, we look at the “Anatomy of a Smear Campaign Against Rashida Tlaib.” We’ll speak with Prem Thakker of Zeteo and Steve Neavling, an investigative reporter at Detroit Metro Times. It all started with an interview the Detroit congressmember did with the Detroit Metro Times. Then CNN got a hold of it. Stay with us."

Report from Beirut: Israel Is “Targeting Everyone” in Bombing Campaign, Killing 700+ in Just Days