Red Flag Alert - Israel in Lebanon

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention & Human Security is extremly alarmed by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s warning last week that Beirut’s southern suburbs would “soon resemble Khan Younis,” a reference to the city in the southern Gaza Strip that has been completely flattened by over two years of Israeli bombardment. It is grotesque that a state minister would publicly threaten the Lebanese people with the same large-scale destruction, mass killing, and genocidal violence that has devastated the Palestinians in Gaza.
From southern Lebanon to Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and Tripoli, Israel is subjecting Lebanon to intense bombardment. The IDF has struck more than 500 targets since Monday, including 80 on Thursday. The scale, geographic scope, and coordinated intensity of these actions indicate an intent not merely to strike military objectives, but to inflict broad suffering and create conditions of life that render civilian existence unsustainable.
Smotrich’s declaration came after the IDF issued what it calls “evacuation orders” for the entire southern suburbs of Beirut—the most densely populated residential neighborhood in the country. These orders, used extensively during Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza and its previous war on Lebanon, have been widely condemned by international bodies and human rights organizations as unlawful and inhumane. The IDF frequently issues these warnings hours past midnight when everyone is asleep, often giving merely 30 minutes or less for civilians to leave.
The Lemkin Institute notes that unlike previous orders that have designated buildings with surrounding radii for strikes, this new “evacuation” order for the southern suburbs of Beirut encompasses entire neighborhoods that are home to more than half a million people—including Haret Hreik, Burj al-Burajne, al-Hadath, and Chiyah. Residents were also told to vacate the areas “immediately” with no specified timeline.
Israel deployed the strategy of massive, deliberate destruction of civilian property during the 2006 War, during which it adopted the “Dahyie Doctrine.” This official military doctrine, named by Israel’s then chief-of-staff Gadi Eisenkot in reference to the popular local name for the Beirut southern suburbs, explicitly called for deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure (domicide) as collective punishment to pressure the opponent to “sue for peace.”
On 4 March, the IDF had issued a similar evacuation order calling for the immediate evacuation of the entire population of southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River. That area constitutes approximately eight percent of Lebanon’s territory and is home to hundreds of thousands of people. The city of Sour (Tyre) itself has 200,000 residents. As we write this Red Flag Alert, tens of thousands of Lebanese are fleeing both southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of the capital. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced, sleeping in their cars or on the side of the road with nowhere to go. Hospitals are being quickly evacuated. Some hospital staff have reported not having enough time to evacuate patients in critical condition. Shelters around the country are rapidly reaching their maximum capacities. Already by Monday 30,000 civilians were in collective shelters. By Thursday the number had reached 100,000. With no other choice than to sleep in their cars or on the side of the road, many Lebanese have chosen to return to their homes in southern Lebanon, knowing that they face almost certain death. Israel is inflicting absolute terror on the Lebanese population.
On 6 March, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned that Israel’s military ground incursions into southern Lebanon, blanket displacement orders, and continued airstrikes across different parts of the country are bringing further misery and suffering to an already weary civilian population. OHCHR also expressed deep concern over the already dire toll on civilian life. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the death toll from Israeli strikes has now risen to 394, including 83 children dead and 1,100 people wounded since the beginning of this week. During the “two month war” in 2024, around 200 children were killed. The fact that nearly half that number has been recorded in just one week underscores the unprecedented intensity of Israel's attacks and their devastating impact on children.
The Lemkin Institute would like to make clear that these “evacuation orders” are not about civilian protection. Lebanon is a tiny country and there is nowhere for all of these evacuees to go. Furthermore, Israel is bombing areas in Lebanon that are generally safe, so there is nowhere safe for anyone. The nature and scope of Israel’s orders instead suggest a strategy of forced displacement and psychological warfare, aimed at terrorizing an entire population and preparing land for a ground invasion. This is collective punishment and a flagrant violation of the laws of war. Unfortunately, the Gaza scenario is once again unfolding before our eyes. Not only are we witnessing it, but the Israeli government is openly celebrating it. If the international rules-based order had not been dismantled by Israel, the United States, and their allies, Bezalel Smotrich would be at The Hague right now for the genocide he perpetrated in Gaza, not broadcasting videos about the second genocide he is plotting in Lebanon.
The seeds for this current Israeli aggression on Lebanon lie further back in history than commonly perceived. Even early Zionist leaders coveted Lebanon’s land and resources – especially water – as far back as 1919. In 1948, the same year Israel was established following the genocide of Palestinians in the Nakba, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon and committed their first major massacre against Lebanese civilians in the village of Hula, despite Lebanon’s conscious decision to stay neutral during the 1948 war. Ever since, Israeli forces have conducted repeated cross-border attacks into Lebanon, including bombing its international airport in 1968.
In 1982, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, bombarding and besieging Beirut and oversaw genocidal massacres in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps perpetrated by the Israel-backed far-right Christian militia called the Phalange. The Shia armed group calling itself Hezbollah emerged after 1982 as a resistance to Israeli attacks and as a form of Shia self-defense within Lebanon’s complex ethnic and religious demography and brutal civil war. It grew powerful as a consequence of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Funded by Iran, Hezbollah embraced terrorist tactics against Israel and the United States and eventually gained the position of a “state within a state” in southern Lebanon, providing social services and engaging in other civilian government duties.
Israel has long sought to destroy Hezbollah as part of its plans to take over all of Palestine, occupy South Lebanon, and silence resistance to its erasure of Palestinian identity. So the temptation for Israel now is clearly to take advantage of its war against Iran to root out Hezbollah once and for all. But Israel’s ambitions will not stop here. Israel often claims that it seeks peace with the Lebanese people and that its military actions in Lebanon are purely defensive. However, Israel’s actions, including decades of cross-border attacks in the south of Lebanon (long before the existence of Hezbollah), suggest that it is primarily interested in Lebanese territory.
Shortly after midnight on Monday, Hezbollah launched a barrage of six rockets at a missile defense site near Haifa — its first attack since the ceasefire agreement of 27 November 2024. Hezbollah stated that this strike was in response to the more than 15,000 violations of the ceasefire agreement by Israel since it was signed in November 27, 2024, as well as to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. This gave Israel the pretext to attack, but did not cause the attack. The same morning, in fact, even before Hezbollah’s strikes, Israel deployed over 100,000 troops along its border with Lebanon. In December 2025, the Lemkin Institute issued a statement warning about the escalating violence against Lebanon and credible reports that Israel was preparing a second large-scale military operation, framed as an effort to “disarm Hezbollah.” Clearly those preparations were tied to what we now know was Netanyahu’s plan to assassinate Khamenei in 2026.
As all of the above suggests, this is not a new war. This is a continuation of a war that never ended. For nearly 15 months Israel has been repeatedly violating the ceasefire that was meant to bring an end to a devastating conflict that killed more than 4,000 people and displaced over 1.2 million in Lebanon. During this time, while Hezbollah abided by the ceasefire terms, Israeli operations did not stop. Instead, they took on a sustained and normalized pattern, with airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery fire striking Lebanese territory on a daily basis. Israel committed these ceasefire violations with total impunity, as they have received little attention from mainstream media. Israel’s aggression towards Lebanon now – despite all efforts of the Lebanese government to prevent it – should come as no surprise, which is a tragedy in and of itself.
On 4 March, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, citing a security source, reported that Israel is considering attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon in order to pressure the Lebanese state to take action against Hezbollah. It appears Israel has grown accustomed to such conduct after killing more than 70,000 civilians and devastating Gaza, but the Lemkin Institute wishes to remind the Israeli government that civilians are never lawful targets of war. Civilian infrastructure may not be targeted unless it is being used for military purposes and constitutes a lawful military objective. Where there is any doubt as to whether a target is a military objective, it is presumed to be civilian in nature. Merely proclaiming that a state believed a target to be military in nature does not render an attack legal. Furthermore, states must be cognizant of the prohibition against area bombardment and the principles of proportionality and distinction in choosing their targets. Even if a target is a military asset, when it is within a densely populated area, using weapons likely to cause civilian casualties can be a war crime. Israel’s actions in Gaza over the past 29 months have demonstrated that Israel is certainly not careful about following the law when it comes to the nature of its military targets.
Israel’s attack on Lebanon has the potential to divide Lebanese society and reignite long-standing intercommunal grievances. Reports from several areas in Lebanon indicate that there is a growing atmosphere of fear and mistrust toward the displaced Shiite population from the south. In 2024 Israeli strikes targeted Sunni and Christian areas where Shiite families were sheltering, so the concern now is that Israel will do the same this time around. In this critical moment , the Lemkin Institute urgently calls upon the people of Lebanon to stand united against Israeli aggression. Lebanon has endured many crises, but its strength has always come from the solidarity of its people in times of hardship. Throughout its history Israel has consistently sought to fracture Lebanese society, weaponizing internal tensions and external aggression to weaken the nation from within. The ​​Lemkin Institute has strong reason to believe that Israel is trying to cause civil strife in Lebanon along sectarian lines through the unprecedented scale of displacement. To succumb to mistrust or suspicion is to play directly into the hands of those who wish to see the country divided. We urge the Lebanese people not to allow fear to fracture bonds. Lebanon’s diversity is not a weakness – it is the very essence of the country’s identity and its most enduring source of resilience. Now, more than ever, solidarity is Lebanon’s greatest defense.
The Lemkin Institute calls on the Security Council of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and other regional bodies to place maximum pressure on Israel to ensure that no part of Lebanon becomes another Gaza. The official silence and lack of real and effective diplomatic pressure during Israel’s genocide against Palestinians has granted Israel impunity to do whatever it likes, to make all sorts of unchallenged claims about what it is doing, and to bury international law alongside civilian bodies and civilian infrastructure in the Middle East. Certainly the intimidating show of force that the U.S. and Israel have unleashed against Palestine and Iran will have the effect of further silencing potential state and civil society supporters of international law, but now is not the time to be silent. If we all continue to remain silent, the entire world will end up like Gaza as one state after another takes a lesson from Israel and decides to solve its problems through absolute destruction.

The world must act decisively to put an end to this carnage, to bring Israel into a real peace process with Palestinians and its neighbors, and to ensure that leaders who have committed high crimes are brought to justice. Enough is enough is enough is enough.